Playing with Fire
The private schools’ concern
By Gonzalo Duque
OUR unceasing efforts and prayers have paid off.
I am referring to what began as a lonely war which we waged, together with University of Luzon’s president, Dr. Macky Samson, and officers of the Philippine Association of Colleges and Universities (PACU) to correct the statistical flaws committed in board examinations.
The struggle has caught the attention and concern of the Coordinating Council of Private Educational Associations (COCOPEA), which is the voice of the country’s private schools representing over 90 percent of the total number of higher educational institutions (HEIs).
The COCOPEA, by the way, is a federation of all educational associations in the Philippines including the Philippine Ass’n of Colleges and Universities, the Catholic Educational Ass’n of the Philippines, the Ass’n of Christian Schools in the Philippines and the Philippine Association of Private Tech. Institutions – consisting of more than 2,000 private schools.
As you must have known or read in my column articles in previous issues, I have consistently voiced serious reservations if not outright complaint on the manner the quality of graduates and education as a whole is gauged.
Read the following dispatch sent by COCOPEA – from the office of Chairman, Dr. Vicente K. Fabella — to the media:
“The COCOPEA x x x has raised its concern over the continued use of the present formula in computing a school’s passing percentage in licensure examinations given by the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC).
These licensure examination results are being used almost exclusively by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) to assess the quality and standards of programs with licensure examinations of all HEIs.
The private schools are batting for a formula that is more realistic and fair in computing the performance that is ascribed to them in a particular licensure examination,
COCOPEA is of the position that there is a better approach to measure the quality of a school’s program akin to the multilayered evaluation instrument that is used in accreditation around the world.
The private schools believe that licensure examination results are not enough and should not be the only factor to gauge the quality of their graduates. They believe that only first-timers should be included in the computation as this best reflects the quality of their current educational programs and services.
Additionally, what makes the current approach even more inaccurate is that it lumps the first timers and the repeaters of the schools’ graduates or previous years all into one. Private schools are continuously improving their curriculum and delivery of their instructions, especially those that voluntarily submit to the very stringent standards of accreditation by the different accrediting agencies under the Federation of Accrediting Agencies of the Philippines (FAAP) which is recognized by the Philippine government.
Thus to include repeaters in the computation of the passing percentages distorts the picture of how far the private schools have gone in its journey towards attaining higher quality education in a given period.
The Philippine Assn of Colleges and Universities and Universities-Commission on Accreditation (PACUCOA), one of the bigger accrediting agencies under the FAAP has already recognized this principle.
The Supreme Court now also has two computations, one column for first timers and another for repeaters, in tallying the results of the bar examinations.
The current controversy over the alleged leakage of test questions in the June 11 and 12, 2006 Nursing Licensure Examination (NLE) has brought this issue to the fore. The CHED chairman has enumerated several factors which he said has led to the decline of the quality of nursing education in the country. For CHED therefore to close down allegedly “sub-standard” nursing schools using the results of the NLE as the only basis will never solve the problem. The country might just end up one day with no more nursing schools around.
The COCOPEA is one with the CHED and the general public in its desire to continuously raise the standards of education in the country. It believes that a dialogue with the CHED and the PRC with the use of first-timers in determining school performance in the licensure examination is the critical next step in stressing the issue.
The COCOPEA is the umbrella organization of l,864 private schools, colleges and universities nationwide.”
(For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/playing-with-fire/)
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