After three years, a male grad tops nursing board exam

With his first place finish in the July 2010 nursing board exam, Ateneo de Naga University graduate Rayan Oliva brings pride not only to his school but to the Filipino male population as well as he is the first male to top the exam in three years. Oliva broke a three-year trend of female nursing graduates topping all six nursing licensure exams given by the Professional Regulation Commission from June 2007 to November 2009, according to data culled by GMANews.TV. The last time the nursing board exams had a male graduate as a topnotcher was in December 2006, when Jayben Matamis of the Unciano Colleges and Medical Center in Antipolo City topped the 19,712 passers. Since then, the topnotchers have been female nursing graduates, the latest being Clarie Bontol of the Iligan Medical Center College Inc. in Lanao del Norte, who headed the list of 37,527 passers of the November 2009 nursing board exam. Oliva, who hails from Camarines Sur in Bicol Region, however continues the trend of provincial nursing graduates ranking first in the licensure exams. Since November 2008, provincial exam takers have been leading the list of passers. At that time, Jovie Ann Decoyna, a farm girl from the Baguio Central University, was announced as the topnotcher in the nursing board examination. Top-performing schools Although the topnotchers in the past four nursing board exams all came from the provinces, the list of top-performing schools for this year showed a mix of colleges and universities both from urban and rural areas. The Chinese General Hospital College of Nursing and Liberal Arts in Manila was named the top-performing school with 100 or more examinees this year, with a passing rate of 99.60 percent. It was followed by the West Visayas State University in Iloilo, with a 99.36 percent passing rate. Three universities—Saint Paul University in Iloilo, University of the Philippines-Manila and the Philippine Christian University-Manila—were meanwhile named as top-performing schools with 30 to 99 examinees. All three schools posted a 100-percent passing rate. Two of the top-performing schools this year—the West Visayas State University and Saint Paul University, both in Iloilo—also made it to the list of schools with 100-percent passing rate during the November 2009 nursing board exam. Slightly higher passing rate The overall passing rate for this year’s nursing licensure exams, meanwhile, slightly recovered from the figures last year, when slightly less than 40 percent of the exam takers managed to pass the exam. A total of 37,679 out of the 91,008 exam takers, or 41.4 percent, passed the nursing exam given last month by the PRC Board of Nursing. This figure is a slight improvement from last year’s 39.7 percent passing rate. The number of exam takers this year also slightly declined compared to the November 2009 figures, when 94,462 graduates took the exam—the highest in history. The high number of exam takers supposedly reflects the popularity of nursing as a field of study due to the promise of a well-paying job abroad. The popularity of nursing as a field of study has also prompted the mushrooming of sub-par nursing schools around the country, despite a government ban on opening of new nursing schools implemented six years ago. –VVP, GMANews.TV