Stressing that it is “very frustrating” to aspiring professionals and their families, Aksyon Demokratiko senatorial candidate Dr. Carl Balita called on the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) to expedite the digitalization of Board Licensure Examinations in the Philippines.
“It has been almost two years and PRC’s best effort had been postponing examination, which is very frustrating to aspiring professionals and their families,” said Balita, who holds three professional licenses and is known for his review centers all over the country.
Balita presented that in 2019, there were 669,497 board exam takers across 45 regulatory boards.
“With only 261,823 passers in 2019, there were 417,674 board examination repeaters in 2021 added to more graduates of that academic year,” said Balita, citing that a million aspiring professionals may have been affected by the cancellations and postponements of Board Examinations.
He noted that the PRC web site presents 100 board examinations every year. Almost all examinations were canceled since March in 2020. In 2021, there were 48 examinations rescheduled in the same year, while there were 12 that were rescheduled in 2022, with 8 board examinations postponed on scheduled yet to be announced, as posted in the web site.
Late last year, the schedule for the 90 board examinations for 2022 was released. Recently, the practical phase of the Dentist Licensure Examination in NCR has been announced to be rescheduled to March 2022.
There are six board examinations scheduled for January 2022, namely, Real Estate Consultants, Optometrists, Medical Technologists, Architects, Professional Teachers and Sanitary Engineers. There is fear that the other board examinations may also be canceled in face of the continuing increase in Covid cases.
“The PRC had almost two years of lead time to have transformed the board examinations into computerized tests, which is the practice of many countries already,” Balita asserted.
He added that the only “fear is transmission, and computerization is a known long-term solution, which PRC need not reinvent as there are many international examinations given as computerized examinations already.”
Balita cited those almost a million aspiring professionals have been hoping to take the board exam and attain the qualification they need to work as professionals.
In the social media post of Balita, there is an outpouring of frustrations and rage expressed by aspiring professionals, their families and educators.
“Their board examination preparation may have suffered from more than a year of stagnation, unless they continue reviewing,” Balita said pointing out that the demand for professionals, especially those in the areas of health and sciences, construction, and technology, remains high and these aspirants are missing these opportunities, both here and abroad.
“Some of the aspiring professionals have spent on their tests and quarantines already prior to some last minute cancellations. There are also cases that the aspiring professionals filed leave of absences from employment as far as overseas. “There is overwhelming economic implications resulting from the cancellations and postponements,” Balita warned.