Discouraging cheating
Over a year after the qualifications of Philippine nurses were compromised by a cheating scandal in the nursing board examinations, the government is finally set to file criminal charges against the operators of two review centers. Certain quarters are calling for similar charges against the operators of another review center plus the indictment of suspected sources of the leaked test questions, believed to be personnel of the Professional Regulation Commission. Investigators have not identified the possible beneficiaries of the leaked questions in the June 2006 nursing board exam. If anyone is ever identified, the person should also be prosecuted and barred from the nursing profession.Apart from prosecuting the suspected culprits, the government should consider a proposal to include course reviews in the regular school curriculum. Graduates of all courses that require licensure examinations want refresher courses before taking the exams. The review program for nursing graduates can be free. Schools, after all, gain prestige from the good performance of their graduates in professional licensure examinations. Or else schools can charge fees that are lower than those in review centers.
The government need not shut down existing review centers. Graduates of certain nursing schools may believe they can get exam pointers from these review centers that they cannot hope to obtain from their schools. But the review centers will have to compete with the review programs that will be included as part of the regular nursing curriculum. Review centers may also be required to have formal link-ups with nursing schools.
In the wake of the nursing board exam scandal, the government should also be on the lookout for cheating schemes in other professional examinations. Similar scandals have rocked the medical board examinations as well as the bar exams. Schools and fraternities have been implicated in previous cheating scandals.
The best way to discourage cheating is by sending the culprits to prison — both those who leak test questions as well as the beneficiaries — and by imposing stiff penalties on schools whose operators participate in any form of cheating in examinations. The nation awaits the outcome of the nursing board case.
