|
An official of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) on Tuesday
admitted that the recent incident involving Northcap Review Center
could have been averted had the industry been regulated by the
agency.
In a statement, CHED Executive Director William
Medrano said that had the review centers been regulated, then
incidents such as those, especially the continued problems of
fly-by-night review centers, could have been avoided.
“If it is regulated, then there will be no
fly-by-night schools or problems with review centers,” he said.
Earlier, the administrative officer of Northcap
Review Center in Baguio City reportedly ran away with P1.2 million
in registration fees, leaving the chances for thousands of nursing
students to take the licensure examination in peril.
The owner of Northcap Review Center in Balanga
City, lawyer Josephine Paguio, said Northcap-Baguio Administrative
Officer Vivian Lazaro did not file with the Professional Regulations
Commission the application of 1,067 nursing reviewers from Northcap
branches in Central Luzon and Northern Luzon, 271 of which come from
Bataan.
Paying P1,150 per applicant, the total amount
paid by Northcap reviewers amounted to more than P1.2 million, which
Lazaro did not remit to the PRC, Paguio said.
Paguio said they came to know on April 23 that
Lazaro, eldest sister of one of the owners of Northcap-Baguio, did
not submit the application papers of 271 reviewers from Bataan and
from other Northcap branches to the PRC. Folders of documents of
reviewers from Bataan were discovered in a building in Baguio City.
Lazaro has since been missing, while the
deadline of applications for the June 1 and 2 Nursing Board Exam was
on April 18, said Paguio.
Earlier, Engr. Santos Cuervo from the Excel
Review and Training Center said in an appeal letter to CHED Chairman
Romulo Neri that the recent scam in the Civil Engineering Board Exam
of November 2007 that resulted to the re-examination of two subjects
could have been prevented if review centers were placed under strict
monitoring and supervision of CHED.
Last month, Executive Director Atty. Julito
Vitriolo warned review centers that they will no longer extend the
deadline for the imposition of Executive Order No. 566, which
mandates independent review centers to integrate with schools to
prevent a repeat of the 2006 Nursing Board Exam.
It will be recalled that in 2006, the country
suffered from a severe beating from the international community amid
that year’s nursing board exam that has caught attention of
foreign governments, specifically the US, Great Britain and
Australia.
Vitriolo said that their main concern is simply
that of guiding the students and parents in enrolling in legitimate
and CHED-authorized review centers and not just some fly-by-night
schools.
Vitriolo said that they would not hesitate to
close down review centers that would not comply with EO 566.
-- James Konstantin Galvez
|
