Re: New Yorker looking to attend nursing school in The Philippines

Originally Posted by Silverdragon102

Things in the last few years have changed and we have seen many post in the Philippine forum where it appears that the school training hasn't been great. We have seen people post with lack of skills and a few other countries like Canada and Australia are requesting assessment or bridging programs (depending on country) on nurses where it is felt that the training doesn't match that country's requirements

The bridging courses apply to all nurses; even if they come from the USA or UK.

Luckily the Australian and New Zealand bridge courses are adjustable based on the level of experience each individual candidate exhibits.

Minimum is 2 weeks, longest is 6 months all depending on the performance of the individual nurse.

I would love to see the USA implement such a program so there would not be any more stupid xenophobia regarding foreign nurses.

Re: New Yorker looking to attend nursing school in The Philippines

Originally Posted by Hushdawg

The bridging courses apply to all nurses; even if they come from the USA or UK.

Luckily the Australian and New Zealand bridge courses are adjustable based on the level of experience each individual candidate exhibits.

Minimum is 2 weeks, longest is 6 months all depending on the performance of the individual nurse.

I would love to see the USA implement such a program so there would not be any more stupid xenophobia regarding foreign nurses.

Sorry but not all UK and US nurses are required to do the bridging program in Australia I have seen many UK nurses go to Australia get through the board assessment without having to do any further courses. they only have to pass the English exam

Re: New Yorker looking to attend nursing school in The Philippines

Originally Posted by Silverdragon102

Sorry but not all UK and US nurses are required to do the bridging program in Australia I have seen many UK nurses go to Australia get through the board assessment without having to do any further courses. they only have to pass the English exam

it depends upon the experience they have...
others are/were waived from doing the bridging program beacause they have enough nursing experience that satisfy the nursing board's standards...

however, like what you have said, the english exam applies to all overseas nurses...even if you came from an english speaking country..

Re: New Yorker looking to attend nursing school in The Philippines

I have to agree with Silverdragon when there are talks about the education coming from the Philippines nowadays isn't as great. I've heard this even from older generation Filipinos themselves. It even angers them because they say the education definately isn't the same as when they were in school and they see that some of the newer generation nurses from there lack the clinical skills and even some of the theory knowledge. There are some younger generation Filipino nurses who even see this. They can even seem to sniff out who the ones who have never set foot in nursing school. Believe me, they are out there and you can tell right away.

In all fairness regarding passing rate for foreign grads as 50%, I believe part of it is the language barrier. English isn't their first language in most cases so it's harder for them. I don't care if your education was done in English. Just because your books were in English doesn't mean that English was 100% spoken all the time. I'm sure there were the few exceptions. Also the NCLEX is geared toward nursing in the US, so that's another thing these foreign trained nurses have to adjust to. They're not familiar with nursing in the US so it's something new to them. All passing the NCLEX means is that they can pass the exam. It doesn't mean that they will know what to do once they start working as a RN. They still have to go through training like any (domestic or foreign) other RN. They will learn as they go and they wont know what to do in certain situations because nursing is different in every country. This is the reason why it's important for the US to adopt a bridging program for all foreign trained nurses just like Australia has. Some schools are making LVN's take a bridge course LVN-RN before they're allowed to set foot in the RN portion of the career. They should do the same for foreign grads. If you can't pass the bridge course then you shouldn't be allowed to sit for the NCLEX.

Re: New Yorker looking to attend nursing school in The Philippines

Just to get back on tracK:

The OP is a US citizen and wants to practice in the US

The OP, and many others interested in studying in the Philippines are well aware of the fact that there are terrible nursing schools in the Philippines. I think this forum definitely does a great job pointing that out. Even if we say that only 50% of foreign examinees from the Philippines pass the NCLEX, these studies did not quantify which examinees graduated from the schools that still keep a high degree of educational standards. Numbers are just numbers, it takes a smart person to analyze what the numbers mean. The bright new grad from UP Manila can easily beat the average new grad from Big Bear Community College in Small Town USA in a hypothetical Nursing Quize Bee in my opinion.

It is already discussed ad nauseam that foreign nursing program grads have more requirements to contend with before being eligible to take the NCLEX. This means a longer wait to take the test.

Now, I hope we just let the OP decide on his own and quit this back and forth nonesense.

Re: New Yorker looking to attend nursing school in The Philippines

Originally Posted by NP Gilly

The OP, and many others interested in studying in the Philippines are well aware of the fact that there are terrible nursing schools in the Philippines. I think this forum definitely does a great job pointing that out.

This is why anytime I get to talk to prospective nurses that are shopping for nurse colleges here I urge them to check out the passing rate for the universities they are checking out which are published by PRC.

Normally I don't use passing rates as a litmus test for ANYTHING but this is one exception; why? Because EVERY graduate of a nursing school will take the local board and it is PRC that is calculating the numbers with ZERO forgiveness.
Therefore the school cannot manipulate the figures the same way that review schools do.

Originally Posted by NP Gilly

Even if we say that only 50% of foreign examinees from the Philippines pass the NCLEX, these studies did not quantify which examinees graduated from the schools that still keep a high degree of educational standards. Numbers are just numbers, it takes a smart person to analyze what the numbers mean. The bright new grad from UP Manila can easily beat the average new grad from Big Bear Community College in Small Town USA in a hypothetical Nursing Quize Bee in my opinion.

Overall passing rate for local board in the Philippines is hovering between 40 and 50%
Of those, roughly 70-80% go on to take NCLEX within the following 24 months.
Of those, roughly 45% are passing NCLEX.

NCSBN has done studies about the lapse of time between graduating nursing school and the effect on one's ability to pass NCLEX. It is conclusive that a nurse, even one educated in the USA, risks failing NCLEX by waiting too long to take the exam.
This is broken down to a statistical progression of roughly 10% per month of lapse.
Literally, if you wait 6 months to take NCLEX then statistically you only have a 40% chance of passing according to these studies.

However, you are completely correct in this Gilly, no study so far has evaluated the NCLEX passing mean of individual nursing schools in the Philippines.
The only real evaluation is the local board numbers from PRC and even those do not take into account the nurses who are taking local board within 6 months of graduation versus those who have waited until the next test administration.

Typically in the Philippines, if you graduate in October then you take Local Boards in November, if you graduate in April then you take local boards in May.

Unfortunately now it takes nearly 6 months to actually get your license once you have your passing results so this means that Philippine nurses are not even able to begin the US Licensure application process until more than 6 months beyond graduation.

So that means that given NCSBN's statistics, the Pinoy nurse only has a 40% chance of passing NCLEX at the time he or she begins the application process... let alone the wait that one has to receive eligibility and then register to take the exam.

Given all the odds and variables, when you calculate on paper the nurses in the Philippines only have a statistical probability of 23.71% of passing NCLEX (allowing for the average application processing time of 6 months beyond application date).

Bearing that in mind, I find it a testament to those who DO pass NCLEX for their skill and knowledge and the Pinoy nurse in general since a 45% passing rate proven is far greater than would be expected when crunching the numbers.


There ARE garbage schools everywhere. The only difference is that in the Philippines schools continue to function that would have been shut down elsewhere.

Fortunately for the population that would be cared for by nurses, these garbage schools only pass a handful of students beyond the local board phase and those educated will never see the USA hospitals as a place of employment; let alone Philippine hospitals.

This forum can serve as a guidepost for those planning to take up nursing by informing prospective Nursing students about schools to stay away from. Every 6 months someone can easily post the passing rates from PRC for all the schools in the Philippines.

Re: New Yorker looking to attend nursing school in The Philippines

Top Nursing Schools for June 2009

Based on June 2009 Nurse Board Exam Results, the top nursing schools are:

100 and more examinees
Rank Nursing School Total Number of Examinees Total Number of Passed Percentage Passed 1 SAINT PAUL UNIVERSITY-DUMAGUETE 112 112 100% 2 CHINESE GENERAL HOSPITAL COLLEGE OF NURSING & LIBERAL ARTS 198 196 99%
SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY 303 299 99%
TRINITY UNIVERSITY OF ASIA (TRINITY-QC) 393 390 99%
UNIVERSITY OF SANTO TOMAS 479 472 99%
WEST VISAYAS STATE UNIVERSITY-LA PAZ 150 149 99% 3 UNIVERSITY OF THE EAST RAMON MAGSAYSAY MEM. MEDICAL CTR. 319 313 98%

30 to 99 examinees
Rank Nursing School Total Number of Examinees Total Number of Passed Percentage Passed 1 UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES-MANILA 61 61 100% 2 PHILIPPINE CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY-MANILA 36 32 89% 3 SAINT PAUL UNIVERSITY-QUEZON CITY 59 51 86%
For example...

The total rankings for November 2008 Exam is here: http://www.prc.gov.ph/documents/NURS1108ps.pdf

Total rankings for June of 2009 Exam: http://www.prc.gov.ph/documents/NURS0609ps.pdf

Re: New Yorker looking to attend nursing school in The Philippines

Originally Posted by NurseCubanitaRN2b

In all fairness regarding passing rate for foreign grads as 50%, I believe part of it is the language barrier. English isn't their first language in most cases so it's harder for them. I don't care if your education was done in English. Just because your books were in English doesn't mean that English was 100% spoken all the time. I'm sure there were the few exceptions.

This doesn't really apply to the Philippines.

English is a secondary language for this country.
One of the reasons it has been taking so long for me to learn Tagalog (and why some foreigners living here never learn a single word) is because you can conduct business and life perfectly fine in English.
For city-dwelling Pinoys, English can very well be a first language since it has been taught in the schools here starting in first grade ever since America invaded the Islands in the late 1800s.

English Only Policies in workplaces and many schools actually penalize those who speak in any other language, some in severe ways.

So the lack of English is why Korean, Indian and Vietnamese nurses are not passing NCLEX well; but not Pinoys.

Actually, if you speak to most of the nurses taking NCLEX here from Manila as frequently as I do you'd swear that English WAS their first language!

Re: New Yorker looking to attend nursing school in The Philippines

Originally Posted by NurseCubanitaRN2b

In all fairness regarding passing rate for foreign grads as 50%, I believe part of it is the language barrier.

Just to debunk this myth once and for all...

Look at the 2006 data for NCLEX where the international nurses are broken down country by country.

That year the Philippines had a passing rate of 58.5%

The UK passing rate was 60%
Ireland was 62.5%
New Zealand was 61.5

China was 65.5%
Chinese Nursing schools do not educate in English.

I think it is finally fair to say that English is not as big a factor as some would think.

Data source: https://www.ncsbn.org/08_2006_LicExa..._MW%281%29.pdf
Pages 31 - 35


By the way...

New Hampshire's passing rate was only 60% that year
DC's was only 55%

So can we finally just say that an NCLEX-passing Licensed RN is the same no matter where he or she may come from?

Re: New Yorker looking to attend nursing school in The Philippines

When I look at that report, I see DC 85.7% and NH 88.9% for the total year, I believe you are looking at quarterly reports not the annual numbers. See page 30.