Tuesday, October 03, 2006 Cabaero: Handling of nursing exam fiasco By Nini B. Cabaero Beyond 30
THE nursing exam fiasco was a simple case turned complicated.
It should have been a simple case of punishing nursing exam cheaters, who unfortunately got some help from nursing schools and those behind the giving of the tests. In less complicated times, the case would have been resolved by identifying cheaters and the people behind it, and punishing them. But, times are different.
Nursing as a profession is seen in many families and by the nation’s leaders as a savior of sorts, to lift families out of poverty and to prevent a downward spiral of the country’s economy.
Foreign employers of Filipino nurses are taking a second look at the products of Philippine nursing schools following reports on the cheating. Some have temporarily stopped the processing of nursing applicants from this year’s batch. This development prompted President Arroyo last week to issue a general order for all those who took part in the questioned test results to re-take the exams.
This order was later qualified after it was discovered that Arroyo’s advisers, for whatever reason, forgot all about the motion pending with the Court of Appeals. Any presidential order would have to be put on hold until the court can resolve the pending motion.
The apparent rush by Arroyo to resolve the controversy by ordering a re-take stemmed from the realization that this fiasco has an impact not only on the nursing profession but also on the bigger picture, the country’s economy and the overseas Filipino workers market.
With the way the government has been handling the case, it seemed the bottom line rested on the financial impact of the tarnished reputation of the Filipino nursing product.
Arroyo’s order, however, is not settling the unrest from some sectors, especially those who said they did not cheat. Sen. Ralph Recto has joined the fray by insisting that exam takers coming from the unaffected areas in the Visayas and Mindanao be excused from Arroyo’s re-take order.
Indeed, if the exam takers were children in one family, why punish all the children when the erring ones have been identified and some have admitted to the crime?
It would have been simpler had all parties agreed that the real bottom line was to be the matter on ethics — that those who cheated must be punished. It should not be a matter of economics in which the only way to clear the Filipino nurses’ name was for everyone to take new exams to wipe out memories of the bad.
Complications surrounding the controversy can be removed if decision-makers were to stick to the real bottom line and that is the matter of ethical wrongdoing and not the financial impact of a tarnished name in the international nursing market.
