Passing rates are the most quoted and least understood numbers in Philippine higher education. They are real, they are published by a real regulator, and they carry real consequences for schools. They are also almost useless for the thing most people try to use them for, which is ranking one course against another.
This post covers where the official figures come from, what they measure, how CHED uses them, and how to read a school's number without fooling yourself. It does not publish results, and it does not rank schools. For the current cycle's figures, go to the Professional Regulation Commission directly.
Where the numbers come from
The Professional Regulation Commission is the source. Section 7(m) of Republic Act No. 8981, the PRC Modernization Act of 2000, requires the Commission "to monitor the performance of schools in licensure examinations and publish the results thereof in a newspaper of national circulation." Section 7(n) adds the mandate to adopt a comprehensive rating system for universities, colleges and training institutes based on passing ratio and overall performance in board examinations.
That is why a performance of schools list accompanies each examination release on prc.gov.ph. It is a statutory obligation, not a marketing exercise.
Everything else is downstream. Review centres, news sites and results aggregators republish PRC data, sometimes accurately and sometimes not. When a figure matters to a decision you are making, trace it to the PRC release for that specific examination.
Why comparing across courses does not work
Four things differ between any two licensure examinations, and each of them moves the headline rate.
The passing standard is not one number. Section 7(h) of RA 8981 authorises the Commission to determine the appropriate passing general average rating in an examination if not provided for in the law regulating the profession. So for some professions the bar sits in the profession's own statute, for others in a board resolution. They are not the same bar, and a rate is only meaningful against the bar it was measured with.
This is also where a lot of internet misinformation comes from. Passing ratings and eligibility rules get quoted years after the statute containing them has been amended or repealed. If a specific figure matters to you, check the current professional regulatory law and the board's own resolutions rather than a forum post.
The examinee populations differ. Some professions have a large, geographically spread body of examinees drawn from hundreds of schools. Others are small enough that a single institution's batch moves the national figure. A national rate computed over 200 examinees and one computed over 40,000 are not the same kind of statistic.
The exam structures differ. Number of subjects, weighting, whether there is a practical or design component, and whether a conditional or removal mechanism exists all change the shape of the results.
Repeat-taker mix differs. Professions with historically low pass rates accumulate repeaters, which drags the combined rate down in later cycles even if teaching has improved.
The upshot: "which course has the highest passing rate" is not a question with a useful answer. "How does this school perform in this exam relative to other schools in the same cycle" is.
First-time takers versus everyone
The single most important distinction on any performance list is whether a figure counts first-time takers only or all examinees.
A combined figure includes repeaters, who may have graduated years earlier, may have reviewed elsewhere, and in some cases studied at a different school entirely. It tells you less about the programme that is currently running.
CHED itself uses the narrower basis. CMO No. 15, s. 2017 states that the institutional passing average in the licensure examination for programmes to be phased out shall consider ratings of examinees who took the licensure examination for the first time.
When you see a school advertise a passing rate, check which one it is quoting. A school with a strong first-time rate and a weak combined rate is telling you something specific about its recent graduates versus its backlog.
How CHED uses passing rates against schools
This is the part students rarely hear about, and it is the most consequential use of the data.
Several CHED programme standards attach sanctions directly to licensure performance.
Nursing. CMO No. 15, series of 2017 provides that effective Academic Year 2018-2019 and yearly thereafter, institutions offering the nursing programme whose average passing percentage in the licensure examinations is thirty percent and below for the past three consecutive years, equivalent to six examination periods, shall be sanctioned. The ladder runs through warning with a monitoring visit, to probation for phase-out with a monitoring visit within a year, to phase-out of the programme with admissions stopped for institutions below thirty percent. A parallel table sanctions non-compliance found in joint CHED-PRC monitoring across eleven areas of evaluation, from the licensure performance itself to faculty, curriculum, RLE facilities, libraries and research.
Midwifery. CMO No. 3, series of 2023 applies the same logic. It states that sanctions for midwifery schools shall be based on the three-year consolidated Midwifery Licensure Examination institutional performance and the outcome of the monitoring visit, computed from first-time takers over the last three calendar years, with institutions at thirty percent and below for three consecutive years subject to sanctions.
Two practical consequences for you as an applicant:
- A programme with a persistently poor passing rate is not just a weaker education. It is a programme that can be closed while you are enrolled, which is a genuinely disruptive event.
- Because CHED reads a three-year window, one bad cycle is not the signal. A trend is.
How to actually check a school
A workable routine, in order:
- Pick the right exam. Confirm the course you are considering even has a licensure examination. Many do not. Our list of courses with board exams sorts that out.
- Go to the PRC release for the specific examination and cycle, not to a summary article.
- Read the column headings. First-time takers or total? Passers over examinees for that cycle only?
- Look at the examinee count next to the percentage. A 100 percent rate over four examinees and an 85 percent rate over 300 are different achievements. This is precisely why PRC's own top-performing-school criteria are banded by examinee volume.
- Look across three cycles, not one. That is the window CHED uses, and for good reason.
- Ask the school for its own numbers in writing, including how many students entered the programme in the year that cohort started. The gap between entrants and examinees is the number nobody advertises.
We keep course-specific school comparisons in separate posts where the data supports it, including nursing schools and NLE performance and accounting schools and CPALE performance.
What "top performing school" actually means
PRC recognises top performing schools per examination, and the criterion is set for that examination rather than fixed nationally. Some published examples of how much it varies:
| Examination | Criterion PRC printed with the list |
|---|---|
| May 2026 CPALE (accountancy) | 50 or more examinees, at least 80% passing |
| July 2026 interior design | 10 or more examinees, at least 90% passing |
| March 2026 teachers, elementary | Top 8 with 100+ examinees at 80%+, and top 10 with 50-99 examinees at 90%+ |
| March 2026 teachers, secondary | Top 10 with 300+ examinees at 80%+, and top 10 with 100-299 examinees at 90%+ |
Because the threshold moves, "top performing school" is not a transferable rank. A school can hold it in one profession's list and not appear in another's, and a school can miss the list purely because it had too few examinees that cycle. Read the criterion printed at the top of every list.
The limits of the whole exercise
Passing rates measure the examinees a school produced, not the students it admitted. A programme that admits selectively, screens hard at the retention stage and only lets confident candidates sit the exam will post a better rate than a programme that admits widely and carries everyone through. Both behaviours are legal, and neither is visible in the percentage.
If you want to understand a programme, the passing rate is one input among several: the size of the graduating batch, the number of examinees, faculty stability, and whether the school holds current CHED authority for that programme. Ask about all of them.
And if you are already past the choosing stage and into preparing, the rate is behind you. What is in front of you is registration, requirements and a review plan. Start with PRC board exam requirements, and for the accountancy route specifically, how to pass the CPA board exam.
Sources
- Republic Act No. 8981, PRC Modernization Act of 2000, full text (LawPhil Project) — https://lawphil.net/statutes/repacts/ra2000/ra_8981_2000.html
- Professional Regulation Commission, official website and examination releases — https://www.prc.gov.ph/
- Professional Regulation Commission, top performing school announcement, May 2026 CPALE — https://www.prc.gov.ph/article/top-performing-school-may-2026-cpale
- Professional Regulation Commission, top performing schools announcement, March 2026 LEPT — https://www.prc.gov.ph/article/march-2026-lept-top-performing-schools-disclosed
- Professional Regulation Commission, top performing schools announcement, July 2026 licensure examination for interior designers — https://www.prc.gov.ph/article/prc-recognizes-top-four-4-performing-schools-july-2026-leid
- Commission on Higher Education, CHED Memorandum Order No. 15, series of 2017, Policies, Standards and Guidelines for the Bachelor of Science in Nursing Program — https://legacy.ched.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/CMO-15-s-2017.pdf
- Commission on Higher Education, CHED Memorandum Order No. 3, series of 2023, Policies, Standards and Guidelines for the Bachelor of Science in Midwifery Program — https://legacy.ched.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/CMO-No.-03-s.-2023.pdf
