The Commission on Higher Education, or CHEd, is encouraging nursing aides who are non-board passers to take review classes from the top nursing schools to address the shortage of nurses in the country.
According to CHEd chairperson Prospero de Vera III, about 50 percent of the nursing graduates who took the board exams failed the nursing licensure test.
"Why don't we give them a good review class, so if they passed you don't have to wait five years; immediately you have nurses," De Vera told DAILY TRIBUNE in an interview over the weekend.
De Vera said that CHEd, the Deparment of Health, and some private hospitals have signed an agreement on the program.
He said 10 best nursing schools in the country are tapped to provide review classes to nursing graduates and nursing aides who are currently working in the hospitals.
"These are schools that have a 100 percent passing rate. We can guarantee that those who give review classes are top performing nursing schools, not just any review center there," the CHEd chief added.
De Vera also said that they are considering to provide subsidy to those who are taking the review classes to somehow reduce the cost.
"If the President (Ferdinand Marcos Jr.) instructs that this program will happen, then we will ask the funding to reduce the cost," he said.
Earlier, the CHEd has lifted the moratorium on the opening of new nursing undergraduate programs to address the lack of health personnel during the Covid-19 pandemic.
De Vera said at least 54 schools have applied to open new nursing programs.
"I think more than 20 new nursing programs were already approved," he said.
"It is expected that if we're able to certify most of the schools by 2028, we will have an additional 2,052 graduates by that year. So, that will add to the existing annual graduates of nurses. But this is a long-term plan," the CHEd chief added.
De Vera also said that some schools will offer a one-year nursing program, or the Clinical Care Assistant, aimed at reducing the work loads of nurses and to produce additional health manpower.
According to him, Filipino nurses are doing a lot jobs in the hospitals that do not necessarily requires a nursing degree.
"The hospitals should tell us what are the skills and competencies needed by a person to assist the nurse so that the jobs of nurses is just patient care. What works of the nurses that can be de-loaded, and then the skills and competencies that will be de-loaded would be converted to a certificate program," De Vera explained.
He said at least 15 schools will be chosen for the pilot implementation of the new nursing program.
"That curriculum will be adopted by other schools that have a contract with the hospital. If you don't have a contract with the hospital, you will not be allowed [to offer this new nursing program] because we don't want to produce certificates that have no employment," De Vera said.