PT exam leak leads to blacklisting of RP

MANILA, Philippines – Bad news for thousands of Filipino physical therapy (PT) graduates who want to work in the United States: American PT licensure authorities are blacklisting the Philippines and three other countries for at least one year over the leak of test questions.

The Federation of State Boards of Physical Therapy (FSBPT), which administers the US National Physical Therapy Examination (NPTE), announced in its website (www.fsbpt.org<http://www.fsbpt.org>) yesterday that it is suspending NPTE tests for PT graduates from the Philippines, Egypt, India, and Pakistan until fall of next year.

“This necessary security measure is in response to compelling evidence gathered by the Federation reflecting systematic and methodical sharing of recalled questions by significant numbers of graduates of programs in the affected countries, as well as several exam preparation companies specifically targeted to these graduates,” FSBPT said.

“This evidence was obtained through extensive forensic analyses of exam performances, as well as a variety of legal actions brought by the Federation in the United States and abroad,” it said.

“Most notably, this includes the raid and seizure of evidence from the St. Louis Review Center in Manila, Philippines, and its alleged owners/operators, Gerard L. Martin, Roger P. Tong-an and Carlito Balita, which revealed the widespread sharing of hundreds of live test items.

“In response, the Federation is pursuing criminal copyright prosecution against St. Louis Review Center and its owners, has invalidated the scores of several individuals believed to have unfairly benefited from advance access to test questions, and has removed the compromised items from the exam,” it added.

It pointed out that its investigative efforts “have revealed that the sale and sharing of recalled test questions extends beyond this single test preparation company (St. Louis), and that the sharing of test items has continued despite its (federation’s) past efforts to ensure the security of the exam.”

It quoted FSBPT president E. Dargan Ervin as saying, “The Federation recognizes the significant consequences of this policy decision, but feels that it needs to be made clear to all candidates that the Federation will not tolerate security breaches.”

FSBPT said it is discouraging those who have already applied to take the NPTE exam and have paid for it against taking the test as there is a great chance their scores would be invalidated, “given the extensive nature of the detected security breaches and our heightened security procedures.”

It announced that it would design a “separate, secure exam” for PT graduates from the four affected countries to be called, “NPTE-YRLY.”

“The Federation expects to launch the NPTE-YRLY in or about the fall of 2011. Currently, the Federation intends to offer the NPTE-YRLY once per year, at select test sites to be identified at a later date,” it said.

More than nurses, PT practitioners are currently in demand in the US.

Verifying reports

Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said they are now verifying reports about the ban on entry of Pinoy physical therapists in the US.

“We are awaiting report from our Labor office in the United States, but as of now our department has not received any information regarding such concern,” said Baldoz.

The labor chief said she already instructed the Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO) in Washington to look into the authenticity of such information and immediately submit a report on this.

Officials of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration and the Professional Regulation Commission also said they have not received any information on the ban. –Jess Diaz (The Philippine Star) with Mayen Jaymalin