In the second part of this series, I wrote that the LIS schools whose graduates took the Librarian Licensure Examination (LLE) from 2007 to 2025 were divided arbitrarily (so don't ask me to justify it hehe) into four groups:
- Division 1, those with 101 or more first-time examinees over the entire period of 18 years
- Division 2, those with 11 to 100
- Division 3, those with 1 to 10
- Division 4, those with no first-timers (because all their examinees were repeaters)
In this post, I will offer some observations about the Top 10 from Division 2, which has 57 schools (out of 280), but with more than 29% of first-time examinees (or 2,363 out of 8,135).
- ALL of the Top 10 schools in Division 2 are located OUTSIDE Metro Manila: 5 from Luzon, 1 from the Visayas, and 4 from Mindanao. They rarely have more than 5 examinees every year, but their alumni have at least an 80% chance of passing the LLE.
- The Top 2—Notre Dame of Dadiangas University (NDDU) in South Cotabato and Saint Louis University (SLU) in Baguio—are even better. 44 of 45 NDDU first-timers passed in 14 years, and 68 of 70 SLU first-timers passed in 13 years. Almost 100%! They may have fewer graduates, but they train them well.
- Special mention goes to University of Southeastern Philippines in Davao City & Cagayan State University in Tuguegarao because their LIS programs seem to have started only recently, but the quantity and quality of their first-timers since 2023 have been stellar! I hope their numbers continue to grow.
- Sadly, 4 of the schools in the Top 10 of Division 2 have only had 2, 1, or even 0 students take the LLE in the last 5 years. It looks like they were adversely affected by the pandemic.
- Finally, the preponderance of provincial schools in Divisions 1 AND 2 reminds me of something that the #NationalNonLibrarian once said at a budget meeting presided by a congresswoman from the House of Representatives, “Yung mga nasa probinsya po, wala talagang course na nag-ooffer ng librarianship doon.” Don’t me!
My next post will examine Divisions 3 and 4, and why I will not be sharing any list of the worst schools. But allow me to repeat—again—what I wrote in "The Best and the Worst LIS Schools, 2007-2009":
Why am I doing this? There is very little information available to students regarding the quality of LIS schools, and it is my hope that this effort of mine can provoke more detailed studies. Plus, if even one prospective LIS student looks at these tables and decides to go to one school, instead of another, then the time I've spent on this would have been worth it.
Note: The data used for this post are from the PRC press releases about the LLE results from 2007 to 2025.
