The Professional Regulation Commission is now accepting applications for the Librarians' Licensure Examination. The deadline for filing of applications is on Friday, October 14, at the central office and on Tuesday, October 4, at the regional offices. The exam will be held on Thursday and Friday, 3-4 November 2005.
If you are going to take the licensure exam this year—or know someone who will—the following are what I learned from my experience last year:
- It's never too early to start the application process. Getting copies of some of the required documents will take several weeks.
- Check out the "Instructions to Examinees," print it out, read everything carefully, and make sure you understand and follow all the instructions.
- Prepare your documents and make sure that your birth certificate is from the National Statistics Office. (Note: You may obtain a copy of your birth certificate at the PRC office in Manila, the Census Serbilis Centers, or online). If the birth certificate you have is printed on NSO paper but signed by someone from City Hall, it will not be honored.
- If you are able to get the right birth certificate but there are discrepancies between your birth certificate and other documents (e.g., name, date of birth, sex), you will either have to obtain further documentation, have the other documents changed to reflect the details in your birth certificate, or go to court to officially change what needs to be changed. (Aside: For some strange reason, my birth certificate did not have entries for sex or date of birth. It's a good thing all I had to do was show my... er, get a supplemental report from City Hall LOL!)
- Finally, let me just repeat: It's never too early to start the application process. As Murphy has stated so eloquently, "If anything can go wrong, it will."
