The test was supposed to start at 8 a.m. but was moved to 11 a.m. to give the PRC’s test custodian, who was able to fly to typhoon-devastated Bicol only at 7 a.m. yesterday, ample time to distribute the test questionnaires.
PRC chairwoman Leonor Rosero said that from the Legazpi airport, the test custodian had to be driven on roads that were blocked by electric posts and trees that had been felled by the typhoon.
As a precautionary measure, the PRC avoids distributing test questions way ahead of the examination period. If the questionnaires reach their destination early, they are kept at the vaults at PRC’s regional offices.
"We decided to delay the test because we want it to start simultaneously. We had to make adjustments because of the typhoon," Rosero said in a telephone interview.
Around 41,850 nursing graduates have registered to take the test, including the 1,200 June examinees who were stricken off the PRC’s list of those who passed the exams earlier this year. They initially failed the test but when the agency made a re-computation of the grades to cleanse the test of leakage, they passed.
But the Court of Appeals nullified the re-computation and upheld their original grades. The examinees will have to take Tests III and V, which were leaked prior to the test.
The PRC was supposed to administer Tests I, II and IV yesterday but because of the delay, the agency decided to give only Tests I and II.
Test IV will be given today, along with Tests III and V. The two-day examination is composed of 500 questions.
Rosero added that today’s test will start on time.
As soon as the last examinee completes the test today, the PRC will release from "quarantine" five examiners from the Board of Nursing. BON chairwoman Carmencita Abaquin and members Leonila Faire, Perla Po, Betty Merritt and Marco Antonio Sto. Tomas had prepared the test questions.
The five examiners have been in "quarantine" since Monday last week.