NORTHERN Samar Rep. Paul R. Daza has called for a review of what he said were barries in employment, including difficult licensure board exams, amid the shortage of medical professionals, especially nurses.
Daza has delivered in March this year a privileged speech at the House Plenary highlighting the perennially low passing rate in licensure examinations. For example, from 2017 to 2022 in 36 professions the passing rate is only 52.58%, which is only half of the number of examinees.
“Ibig sabihin po, kalahati po ng ating mga examinees sa maraming propesyon ay bumabagsak (This means that half of examinees in most professional licensure exams fail the tests). What our newly-appointed Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa said is correct. The
Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) needs to ‘relax’ the rules. However, the solutions must be long-term rather than stop-gap measures,” Daza said.
PRC records show that the passing rates in many professions during the mentioned years were all low.
In the teaching profession, the average passing rate is 31.56 percent for elementary education while the passing rate is 41.25 percent for high school. For criminologists, the rate is 34.84 percent, while for certified public accountants, the passing rate is 24.36 percentage. For fisheries technologies, passing rate is 33.18 percentage only.
“The Philippines is an archipelagic nation with oceanic area larger than its land area but only 1/3 of its aspirants are passing the licensure exam. Another alarming trend is the passing rate for agriculturists. It is 36.92 percent only! Paano na po ang ating goal toward food security (How can we achieve our goal for toward food security)?” Daza asked.
He noted that the number of farmers has been decreasing over the years. The total number of persons employed in agriculture declined to 9.7 million in 2019, down by 3 percent from 10 million in 2018 (PSA records). Comparing this within a five-year reference period, it is a decrease of 14 percent, with 11.3 million people working in the sector in 2015.
“We have been discussing this matter with PRC and I’m happy that they are very receptive. There are solutions – aside from rationalizing the passing rates – such as a ‘modular’ approach where examiners who failed the board exams but passed in certain subjects need no longer re-take the whole exam,” Daza proposed.
In the US, the Medical Licensing Examination is divided into three examinations and examinees can complete them within seven years, in some states. Some states allow additional three years for those completing their PhDs.
In Australia, there is a system called “voluntary certification (or self-regulation).” Under this certification, a person may be registered to practice his profession even without occupational licensing. Instead, members of his profession voluntarily establish an association and agree to abide by the rules and standards of the association.
“It’s time to break all barriers. We already have the law on free tertiary education. It’s
still problematic in certain aspects but it’s a good start. What we need to work on as well is
ensuring that our graduates will not join the unemployed after graduation,” Daza stressed.
