If you searched for a nursing bridging program in the Philippines, you were probably told one of two things: that a midwifery or allied-health background lets you finish BS Nursing in two years, or that a TESDA certificate ladders straight into a nursing degree. Neither of those is written into any current CHED memorandum order.
Here is what is actually true. CHED prescribes exactly one bridge programme in this family of professions, and it runs from the old midwifery diploma into BS Midwifery, not into BS Nursing. Entry into BSN with prior credits happens, but it happens as ordinary credit transfer decided school by school, not as a national bridging track. And no arrangement of any kind gets you around the supervised clinical hours.
The one bridge CHED actually prescribes
CHED Memorandum Order No. 3, series of 2023 set the Policies, Standards and Guidelines for the Bachelor of Science in Midwifery. It did something structural: it required all higher education institutions to shift from the Diploma in Midwifery to a four-year Bachelor of Science in Midwifery, giving them three years from effectivity to complete the shift, with the new curricular minimums implemented starting Academic Year 2023-2024.
That shift stranded a lot of people mid-qualification, and the order deals with them directly. Its Article on the transformation of existing programmes states that the previous standard, CMO No. 33, s. 2007, could still be implemented until Academic Year 2021-2022, and that graduates of it may avail of the bridge programme under the new CMO.
The new BSM is also built as a step-ladder qualification in its own right, which is worth knowing if you are choosing between midwifery and nursing:
| Exit point | Conferred after | Intended role |
|---|---|---|
| Certificate in Midwifery | first year level | Assistant Midwife, clinic assistant |
| Diploma in Midwifery | second level | Associate Midwife, community health worker |
| BS Midwifery | four-year programme | full-fledged midwife, qualified to take the Midwifery Licensure Examination |
Students may exit at the end of the relevant level to take the certificate or diploma, or continue to the four-year degree. CMO No. 3 also lists BS Nursing and BS Public Health as fields allied to midwifery, which is a statement about disciplinary proximity, not a promise of credit transfer.
If midwifery itself is what you are weighing, our BS Midwifery guide covers the programme and the licensure exam it leads to.
There is no CHED bridging curriculum into BSN
The current standard for nursing education is CHED Memorandum Order No. 15, series of 2017. It runs to 63 pages covering programme outcomes, the full curriculum, faculty qualifications, laboratory and clinical facility requirements, and sanctions. It contains no bridging track, no ladderised entry, no advanced-standing curriculum, and no midwifery-to-nursing pathway.
That absence is the answer to the question most people are actually asking. If a school advertises a "bridging program" into BS Nursing, it is describing its own admission arrangement, not a CHED programme. That is not automatically a red flag, but it does mean the terms are entirely institutional and you have to read them.
What schools mean when they say bridging
In practice, three different things get sold under that word.
Credit transfer into a regular BSN. You enrol in the ordinary four-year BSN and the school credits some previously earned units, most often General Education. How much gets credited is a school decision. For private institutions, the CHED Manual of Regulations for Private Higher Education (CMO No. 40, s. 2008) leaves subject load to the approved curriculum for the degree and puts transfer, retention and cross-enrolment squarely under institutional policy. Get the evaluation in writing, signed, before you pay anything.
A second-degree route. If you already hold a bachelor's degree, you are a second courser, and the GE block is where most of the savings come from. That does not shorten the professional nursing courses or their clinical components. Our guide to taking a second course in the Philippines covers the general mechanics.
Preparatory or refresher coursework. Sometimes "bridging" just means non-credit subjects the school requires before it will let you into the professional sequence. Ask explicitly whether these carry units.
Whichever one you are being offered, ask the same three questions: how many units are being credited, which specific courses they replace, and what the resulting total residency in the programme will be.
Why the clinical hours cannot be shortened
This is the part that makes a genuine two-year nursing bridge unlikely regardless of what any school offers.
CMO No. 15, s. 2017 builds BSN around Related Learning Experience, which the order splits into clinicals and skills laboratory. It requires compliance with an equivalence of fifty-one (51) hours to one unit of RLE. It sets faculty-to-student ratios for skills laboratory and for clinicals in hospital and community settings ranging from 1:8 to 1:10 depending on level and semester, and it sets a student-to-clientele ratio as well. Those ratios exist because RLE is supervised contact with real patients in real facilities, and they cap how many students a school can physically put through.
CHED's 2025 open distance and e-learning policy, CMO No. 12, series of 2025, closes the other obvious workaround. For programmes requiring professional licensure, it limits ODeL delivery to the non-laboratory components unless supplemental guidelines allow specific laboratory courses through approved virtual or remote modalities.
So the clinical block is roughly fixed. Any bridging arrangement that appears to remove it should be checked directly with the school's college of nursing and with the CHED regional office.
The licensure exam is the real gate
Section 13 of Republic Act No. 9173, the Philippine Nursing Act of 2002, sets who may sit the nurse licensure examination. An applicant must establish that they are a citizen of the Philippines or of a country that grants Filipino nurses reciprocal practice rights, of good moral character, and a holder of a Bachelor's Degree in Nursing from a college or university that complies with the standards of nursing education duly recognised by the proper government agency.
Section 25 of the same Act requires that learning experiences adhere strictly to the requirements of the curriculum promulgated by CHED. In other words, the licensing law points back at the CMO, and the CMO has no bridge in it.
If you are working out what PRC will require of you at application time, see our guide to PRC board exam requirements.
What about ETEEAP
The Expanded Tertiary Education Equivalency and Accreditation Program is the legitimate route for turning documented work experience into a degree, and it was strengthened by Republic Act No. 12124 in 2025. Its implementing rules, CMO No. 11, series of 2025, state that graduates of ETEEAP programmes are qualified to take the appropriate licensure examination unless a special or contrary provision is prescribed by law for a specific programme.
BS Nursing does appear against a number of institutions on CHED's published list of deputised ETEEAP providers dated 19 March 2026. The nursing entries on that list, though, are marked For Recertification rather than carrying a current validity period, unlike the newly deputised programmes on the same list which show explicit five-year windows. Under the transitory provision of CMO No. 11, existing deputised institutions have one year from effectivity to comply fully with the new rules, and authority is withdrawn from those found non-compliant.
Read that as: do not assume a nursing ETEEAP slot is open because the programme name appears somewhere. Confirm current authority with the CHED regional office and with the school before you pay a peso. Our ETEEAP guide explains how the programme and its deputisation cycle work.
The other meaning of bridging
Outside the Philippines, "bridging programme" usually refers to something a destination country's nursing regulator requires of internationally qualified nurses who already hold a licence. Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States each run their own assessment and adaptation routes, and they are revised regularly.
Two things follow. First, none of them is a substitute for a Philippine BSN if you have not finished one, since almost all of them start from an existing nursing qualification. Second, nothing on a Philippine school's marketing page is authority for what a foreign regulator will accept. Check the regulator's own site. If the United States is your target, our guide on going from Philippine nursing to the NCLEX covers that specific route.
Before you enrol anywhere
Ask the school, in writing:
- Which CHED memorandum order does this programme operate under, and may I see the government authority or Certificate of Program Compliance?
- Exactly how many units are you crediting, and against which courses on the BSN checklist?
- How many semesters of Related Learning Experience will I still have to complete, and in which affiliated facilities?
- What is the total time to graduation on this arrangement, in semesters?
- What is the total cost across that period, including clinical practicum and affiliation fees?
If a school will not put the credit evaluation in writing before enrolment, that is your answer. For what a full BSN involves from the start, see our BS Nursing guide.
Sources
- 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
- Commission on Higher Education, CHED Memorandum Order No. 11, series of 2025, Implementing Rules and Regulations of Republic Act No. 12124 (ETEEAP Act) — https://legacy.ched.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/CMO-No.-11-S.-2025.pdf
- Commission on Higher Education, list of higher education institutions deputised to offer programs through ETEEAP, as of 19 March 2026 — https://legacy.ched.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/ETEAAP-list-as-of-19March2026-FINAL.pdf
- Commission on Higher Education, CHED Memorandum Order No. 12, series of 2025, Policies and Guidelines on Open Distance and e-Learning — https://legacy.ched.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/CMO-No.-12-s.2025-ODeL-Complete.pdf
- Commission on Higher Education, CHED Memorandum Order No. 40, series of 2008, Manual of Regulations for Private Higher Education — https://legacy.ched.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/CMO-No.40-s2008.pdf
- Republic Act No. 9173, Philippine Nursing Act of 2002, full text (LawPhil Project) — https://lawphil.net/statutes/repacts/ra2002/ra_9173_2002.html
