Gov't could have handled leakage better

First posted 00:29am (Mla time) Nov 01, 2006
Inquirer

Editor's Note: Published on Page A12 of the November 1, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

THE test leakage and cheating that marred the latest nursing licensure examinations could have been handled better by the government. Everybody knows that some test questions were leaked out and "fed" to some examinees.

The following steps should have been taken by the government:

1. The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) should have been tasked to investigate the case and question the examiners, review centers and examinees. Meantime, the results should have been withheld, pending the results of the investigation.

2. After receiving the NBI findings, the justice secretary should have transmitted them to the President and made the proper recommendations.

3. Those found to have committed acts inimical to the fair conduct of the examinations should have been promptly charged in court.

4. If examiners were found to have been involved in the leakage, they should have been immediately removed from office (to prevent their interfering with the investigation). Administrative and criminal cases should have been filed against them.

5. All the review centers involved in the scandal should have been closed, and proper charges should have been filed against their erring officials.

6. The nursing licensure examinations should have been deemed a failure and the results nullified, nationwide. A new set of examiners should have been appointed and another licensure examination should have been scheduled, as early as October 2006, with the examinees (who took the questionable examinations) exempt from paying all the fees required.

7. Examinees who took advantage of the leaked questions should have been permanently barred from taking any nursing licensure examination thereafter.

APOLONIO G. RAMOS, 42 Mindanao St., Marikina City