LLE: First-timers and Repeaters, 2007-2025

The most basic question answered by the annual Librarians' Licensure Examination (LLE) administered by the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) is: Did I—or someone I know—pass or fail? If a person who takes the exam for the first time passes, this question will not be asked again. But if a person fails and decides to take the exam again, then this question may be asked multiple times until the person passes or gives up.

The more important question for me—and for the profession, in my opinion—is: What do the statistics tell us about the education that LIS students are receiving? The annual passing rate can be used to answer this question, but it's actually not the best gauge of the learning that has taken place. (And yes, "learning" and "passing a test" are not exactly the same, but let's leave that discussion for another day.) I believe it's better to look at the passing rates for first-timers and repeaters separately, if we are to gain a better understanding of the state of LIS education.

No. of Examinees & Passers, 2007-2025

The first thing I have to emphasize is that the charts only show results from 2007 to 2025 because passing rates of first-timers and repeaters were only made available in the LLE press releases starting in 2007. Second, the steep declines in number of first-timers in 2014 and 2020 were due, respectively, to the change in exam schedule from November to April (which did not give fresh graduates enough time to submit the required documents) and COVID-19 (i.e., no LLE). Third, just by looking at the charts, it's clear that many more first-timers pass the exam than repeaters, and that the number of repeaters has been declining (due to the limitation, perhaps, that only LIS graduates can take the exam starting in 2010), but looking at percentages of passers vs examinees is also important...

Passing Rates, 2007-2025

If we exclude 2020, passing rates for first-timers and repeaters are clearly trending up. In numerical terms, the average passing rate (APR) for first-timers from 2007 to 2025 is 61 percent, but if we compute only for the past 10 years (2016-2025), the APR for first-timers goes up to 72 percent. The same is true for repeaters, where APR from 2007 to 2025 is 20 percent, but APR for the past 10 years is 26 percent. And in fact, the passing percentage for repeaters in the 2025 LLE is 47 percent, or almost half of all repeaters who took the exam, the highest since 2007 and possibly in LLE history!

What does this mean? I think it means that LIS education, in general, has improved since 2007 because more first-timers and repeaters are passing the LLE.

What's next? I'm going to try and see if I can do some more number-crunching, and update "The Best and the Worst LIS Schools, 2007-2009."

Note: The data used for this post are from the PRC press releases about the LLE results from 2007 to 2025.

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Librarians' Licensure Exams: 1992-2025

This blog has been inactive for several years now. I will eventually write about those missing years here, but for now, I hope some of you will be happy that I'm back!

In case you're new to my blog or were just not aware, individuals who wish to be recognized as librarians in the Philippines have to pass the Librarians' Licensure Examination (LLE) administered by the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC), with exam questions formulated by the three-member Board for Librarians (BFL). Those who pass the exam are then considered licensed or registered librarians. 

In 2008, I shared some observations about the results of the Librarians' Licensure Exams: 1992-2007. Since then, so much has happened in the Philippines, our profession, and the exams, so let me update that old post...

Just by looking at the graph of the number of examiness and passers above, it's clear that the number of those taking the licensure exam has gone up from less than 500 examinees from 1992-1998 to an average of about 750 examinees or so since 2003 (with 2020 as an anomaly, but we'll get to this later). Perhaps the most significant exam-related development that occurred since 1992 is that from 2009 onward, only graduates of Library and Information Science (LIS) degrees (plus repeaters from previous years) have been qualified to take the exam. Previously, those with non-LIS degrees (e.g., BS or AB Elementary Education, with a major or specialization in Library Science) were allowed by Republic Act 9246 to take the exam. (For more on this, see Dean Vyva Aguirre on CPE ad Board Exam Issues.)

And then, of course, there was the year that COVID-19 shut everything down, including PRC board exams. No licensure exams were held in the Philippines that year, except for those conducted before the lockdown began on 15 March 2020. The following year, probably due to restrictions still in place and lingering fears among Filipinos, only 237 took the exam—the lowest number since 1995. It was also due to this development that the computer-based licensure examination was developed and began to be implemented in 2024. 

Next, let's look at the passing rates...

The number of passers does not mean much if it is not divided by the number of takers to come up with a passing rate for the exam (unless, of course, the number of takers is the same every year, which is impossible hehe). The graph of LLE passing rates above indicates that the passing rate was approximately 50 percent from 1993 to 2003, 24 to 37 percent from 2004 to 2011, and—with a few exceptions—higher than 47 percent from 2012 onward. 

While these numbers suggest that the exams were harder from 2004 to 2011, and easier after that period, the answer given by a BFL member to my question in 2012 indicates that among the possible reasons for the increase from 28 percent to 47 percent was that the BFL "conducted peer reviews of questions and made sure the questions were structured in such a way that the takers would easily comprehend them." (Does this mean the questions were difficult to understand before then? Perhaps. I took the exam in 2004, and I remember that there were questions to which there were no answers, were phrased awkwardly, or just plain incomprehensible. But I have no basis for comparison. The best persons to ask are probably the repeaters.)

In my 2008 post, I distinguished between first-timers and repeaters, analyzed passing rates per school, and speculated on the reason UP is consistently the school with the most number of passers. I will present and comment on the data—and more—in future posts.

Note: The data used for this post are from the PRC press releases about the LLE results from 2002 to 2025; and those for 1992-2001 are from "The professionalization of librarians in the Philippines" (pdf) by Antonio Santos.

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