Cheryl Daytec Yangot on Nursing Schools

For our readers who don’t usually visit the comments section, we are uploading Cheryl’s comments because she shares some interesting information and raises some important points about nursing schools. Cheryl knows what she is talking about because she is the lead counsel of the group of nursing students and faculty which exposed the cheating in last year’s nursing board exam. Read our post about said scandal here.

In case you haven’t visited Cheryl’s blog yet, then you should visit it here. You are missing one third of your life if you haven’t read her poems 🙂

Cheryl Daytec-Yangot on nursing schools:
I agree with The Nashman that topnotch education is the key. But how can we achieve topnotch education when the Arroyo Administration liberalized the nursing schools? The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) is granting permits to nursing schools, left and right, front and back. There are so many nursing schools without adequate facilities but they were granted CHED permits. This is in line with GMA’s labor export policy. Our nursing labor is our most marketable export.

At the height of the nursing exam scandal, we brought the issue of poor nursing education to the Senate. The concerned nursing leaders told the Senate that in 2004, there were 200-plus nursing schools in the country. By 2006, the figure rose to 470-plus. The Senators were shocked. I do not know what happened after the shock wore off. I heard that a Senator opened a nursing school. 🙂

I scanned official data and found out that many nursing schools have been dismal performers (Translation: very poor passing rate, some as low as 0%, if that should even qualify as poor) for more than five years. What did the CHED do? Instead of shutting down the diploma mills, it authorized the opening of more schools. Understand me, my dearest Bill, if I do not share your optimism that the government is trying to close down non-performing schools. As a matter of policy, it should. The threats are mere rhetoric. The reality is you and I can open a school as long as we have the building.

It is easy to understand why review centers are so “in-demand”- they provide what the schools do not – the proficiency to pass an exam. No wonder when the nursing grads pass the board, they thank the review centers, not the schools.

***
Although a lot of new nursing schools seem to be diploma mills out to make a fast buck. It is also good to remember that there are good, newly established nursing schools. One of this would be the nursing school of Easter College in Baguio which registered an 85% passing rate in the recent board exam. More from Cheryl:

Cheryl on Easter College:
By the way, Easter School is No. 10 nationwide. I find the record highly impressive because this batch of successful examinees (95 out of 111, not 94/110 as originally reported) is the first. Easter is No. 2 in the region.

I am singling out Easter College because it is a school to which we Igorots seem to have a proprietary attitude. This is perhaps it has always been run by Igorots with Igorots dominating the faculty and student population. Furthermore, the current dean is the hardworking Ruth Thelma Peang-Tingda, the incumbent Governor of the Philippine Nurses Assocatione-CAR. She was one of the nursing leaders who exposed the cheating in the nursing exam of June 2006. To top it all, she is an Igorot– one of us. Her school’s phenomenal rise is ours to celebrate. Kua tako di! [It is our school.]

RELATED: In the News: Cheryl Daytec-Yangot; June 2007 Nursing Exam Results.

5 thoughts on “Cheryl Daytec Yangot on Nursing Schools”

  1. Oh, my God! So GMA is taking advantage of the demand for nurses abroad but she does not care about quality education.

    Kudos to Easter College, Dean Tingda, it’s 95 new nurses and Kaigorotan! What great accomplishment.

    Yes, we read the blog of Cheryl. Great poetry. But she stopped updating.

  2. Hi Antonia,
    Thanks for dropping by. Cheryl is actually back online and has updated her blog with new poems and commentary. Thanks again 🙂

  3. I read Cheryl Yangot’s blog and she really is one gifted poet.

    I actually believe that not only GMA takes advantage of Nursing Students but enterprising Higher Education Institutions as well.

    BTW, aren’t the demands for nurses abroad decreasing?

    I pity first year and second year nursing students because after spending a hefty sum for their nursing education they will turn out as call center agents and not the nurses abroad that they really want to be. Try Checking out call centers and check the ratio of nursing students/graduates and you will be shocked by their number.

  4. Hi Mojo,
    Thanks for dropping by. You are correct that those enterprising HEIs are just as guilty, maybe even more guilty, than GMA.

    I think I also read somewhere that the nursing demand might be decreasing; U.K. yata, for instance, is not renewing the contracts of Filipino nurses/caregivers.

    Thanks for adding me to your blogroll by the way 🙂

  5. yeah. i agree. i think that’s the reason why there seems to be a decline in the quality of nursing education here in the country.

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