To avoid future anomalies in licensure examinations
VILLAR: REVIEW CENTERS NEED GOVERNMENT SUPERVISION
Filed Senate Bill 2371 to make the licensing, regulation
and supervision of review centers under the power of PRC

Senate President Manny Villar, President of the Nacionalista Party, expresses alarm over the proliferation of review centers in the country, the qualification of which and its reviewers is not even scrutinized by any government organization or agency.

According to Villar, "Some review centers have made education a lucrative business associated with anomalous deals or transactions. Any group of people can just put up a review center. The competence and integrity of the reviewers do not pass the scrutiny of any government office. Thus, it is not surprising that we have substandard review centers."

To address this loophole, Villar recently filed Senate Bill 2371 that seeks to grant the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) the power to license, regulate and supervise all review centers, organizations or entities offering review classes in preparation for examinations administered by the commission.

In effect, Villar's proposed bill will amend Section 7 of Republic Act 8981 or the PRC Modernization Act of 2000. Under RA 8981, the PRC still ahs no power of control and/or supervision over review centers, organizations or entities.

"The bill seeks to grant additional powers to the PRC. It could minimize, if not stop, alleged irregularities being perpetrated by some review centers and will limit the number of review centers which shall meet the requirements prescribed by PRC," cites Villar on his bill.

Investigation on the leakage that occurred in the nursing board exams in June is still ongoing. The leak came from a review center, which admitted that it gave its reviewers a document containing many of the questions in the exams.

Villar adds, "Due to the issue of leakage in the nursing exams last June, the PRC has been receiving a lot of criticisms and complaints also since they supervised that particular exam. If PRC would be tasked to supervises and control review centers, it may prevent the repeat of the incident in the future since there would be better regulation procedure as well as accountability if and when anomalies arise."