MANILA, Philippines – The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) announced on Wednesday, July 13, that it lifted the decade-long moratorium preventing colleges and universities from offering new undergraduate nursing programs.

“The commission en banc, after a very thorough review and study of the moratorium on nursing, decided to lift the moratorium on nursing based on an exhaustive discussion,” CHED Chairman Prospero de Vera III said.

In 2010, CHED issued an order imposing a moratorium on the opening of all undergraduate and graduate programs for nursing starting academic year 2011-2012. The commission implemented the ban because of the oversupply of nursing graduates resulting in over 200,000 jobless nurses, increase of schools offering nursing programs, and poor performance of graduates in nursing board exams.

The CHED chair said that the moratorium was lifted due to the reported lack of healthcare workers during the pandemic. For years, healthcare workers have been leaving the country in their quest for better working conditions.

De Vera said that CHED also decided to lift the ban because of the unequal distribution of nursing programs across the different regions in the country, as well as the disparity in the number of private and public higher education institutions offering nursing programs.

“Out of the 333 schools, there are actually regions where there are no universities offering [nursing] degree programs. Like in Caraga, there were only three universities offering degree programs and in other areas like the MIMAROPA, there were only four HEIs offering programs,”  he said. – With reports from Ashley dela Vega/Rappler.com

Ashley dela Vega is a Rappler intern.