BAGUIO CITY -- NURSING STUDENTS of Easter College on Saturday walked out of their classrooms and from their duties in various hospitals to protest the resignation of a dean who helped uncover the 2006 nursing board examinations scandal.

Over 500 students gathered outside the college after learning that school administrators had accepted on Friday the resignation of Ruth Thelma Tingda, who is also governor of the Philippine Nurses Association (PNA).

Tingda is among the four PNA officials and Baguio school leaders who supported three nursing licensure applicants when they reported that some examinees had distributed photocopies of the test questions and answers.

Tingda was not at the rally because of a meeting with the deans of other nursing schools in Northern Luzon. She did not reply to the Inquirer?s telephone calls.

Easter College officials were also not in the campus on Saturday.

Mark Reyes Ang, president of the Easter College Supreme Student Council, said school officials accepted Tingda?s resignation on Friday despite protests and petitions submitted to them since Sept. 11 by the students, faculty members and parents.

The students put up placards and signs demanding that the Easter College board of trustees intercede and rehire Tingda.

?We need our mother,? read several of the placards.

The faculty of the Easter College of Nursing also submitted an open letter to the administrators urging them to return Tingda?s resignation letter, saying the college ?cannot afford major upheavals.?

Students had credited Tingda for an 86 percent passing rate of its nursing graduates in the nursing board.

Twenty instructors allowed the students to leave their classrooms, saying they supported their position and were expecting sanctions from school officials next week.

Some teachers, who asked not to be named fearing retaliation from school authorities, said the feud began as an ordinary dispute over funds but it escalated into a personal disagreement with the school leaders.