CHED saw the light

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor GUILLERMO TEJIDA III Desk Editor NANETTE L. GUADALQUIVER Busines Editor NIDA A. BUENAFE Sports Editor RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

It is a good sign that the Commission on Higher Education has seen the light and has dropped its plans to prolong the nursing course in the country by adding an additional year to the training. The news should bring audible sighs of relief from parents of graduating high school students all over the country whose children are poised to take up nursing next year.

There may be reason to require some schools, noted to provide substandard education, to improve the quality of their instructions to ensure that their graduates do not only pass the professional examinations, but are also able to demonstrate their skills and know-how competently when they start to work professionally.

However, most of the nursing schools, especially those in urban centers and in places where academic standards are high, have been producing well-trained and highly competent nurses who can hold their own with their counterparts from any part of Asia, and even the United States and Europe. The strong demand for Philippine nurses in those other countries is proof of this.

The fact also that many of the nurses from Philippine schools are now occupying high positions, even administrative ones in several hospitals in the U.S. and other countries, underscores this.

It is therefore clear that it should not be the number of years, but the quality of teaching that should be focused on. The Professional Regulatory Commission can take a vital role in this by monitoring the performance of the nursing graduates of each school in the examinations it regularly gives. Schools, whose alumni do poorly generally, should be sternly warned and ordered closed if they do not improve.

Aside from the impracticality and the delay that adding another year would entail, there is also the current economic situation that is confronting, not only the country, but wage-earners and heads of families individually. Adding one more year to the schooling of a child could end up with inability of parents to support his or her education and result in deplorable drop-outs.

We are thankful, therefore, that the CHED has humanely set aside its plan to add to the burden of educating our young, especially as nurses, whose services are in demand, both in our country and abroad.*