MANILA, Philippines - The Commission on Higher Education on Tuesday blamed the glut of "fly-by-night" nursing schools in the country for the low passing rate of examinees in the 2009 nursing board exam.

In an ABS-CBN interview, CHED Executive Director Julito Vitriolo said at least 152 of the 460 schools and universities offering nursing courses in the country have been given warnings for various violations of CHED standards including below average number of nursing board passers.

"The first part of the process is to give them notice of warning for them to improve and if they don't improve within the next three years, there is a phase-out process," Vitriolo said.

He added: "If you have almost zero performance, the school will be closed. It means that there's no hope for the school."

Ruth Padilla, Professional Regulation Commission Commissioner-in-charge for nursing and allied profession, said the PRC Board of Nursing regularly ranks nursing schools according to various standards set by CHED including quality of faculty, school facilities, curriculum, learning activities and board passing rate.

She said the schools are then ranked from excellent to very poor. "Those schools with 0-30% passing rate are ranked very poor. They are given warnings so that they can improve within the year," she said.

Padilla said the November 2009 Nursing Licensure Examinations had the highest number of takers - 94,462 - in the history of the exams. It also had the lowest number of passers at 37,527, or 39.72% of 94,462 takers.

Padilla said a large number of repeat takers -71% - failed the board exam last November, which dragged down the passing rate. On the other hand, 49% of first-time board takers passed the exam last November.

The PRC official said last year's board exam used a new test framework that examines critical thinking. She denied, however, that the test was harder compared to tests done in previous years.

"The basic knowledge is still the one being tested. It depends on who is taking the exam. Some people topped  the exam because they found it easy while others found it hard," she said.

Clarie Morales Bontol of Iligan Medical Center College Inc. topped the board exam with 87.80%, followed by Bryan Noel Cueto Asis of Lyceum of Batangas (87.60%) and Dickson Araza Laude of St. Scholastica's College of Health Sciences-Tacloban (87%).

The examination was given in the cities of Manila, Baguio, Butuan, Cagayan de Oro, Cebu, Davao, Iloilo, La Union, Legazpi, Lucena, Pagadian, Pampanga, Sulu, Tacloban, Tuguegarao and Zamboanga last November 2009.