During its press conference on Thursday, May 11, the Order of Nurses of Quebec (OIIQ) reacted to the second progress report of the commissioner for admission to professions, Ms.e Andre Gariepy. Roughly speaking, despite the devastating observations made by the latter, the OIIQ considers that it has little to reproach itself for.
A large majority of candidates for the profession, both among those with a bachelor’s degree and among those with a DEC, felt that the questions for the September 2022 exam were not clear? No, he retorted: the questionnaire was well constructed and simply reflected the complexity of the profession. If the students had been prepared well enough, they would have had a passing grade. Was the pass threshold set too high and caused 500 too many failures? The College alleges that its own clinical experts disagree with this analysis.
In short, even if the OIIQ, as pointed out by Mr.e Gariépy, “does not have an analysis of the tasks of the profession, current and in due form, to guide the development of the examination” and that the documentation used to prepare the questions “did not been revised for more than a decade”, we are told that, had it not been for the pandemic, everything would have been very well, Madame la Marquise.
Clearly, the OIIQ excels in the art of slipping away. However, we are entitled to ask ourselves questions, knowing that, according to the commissioner, “the Order is not in a position to guarantee or demonstrate a comparable level of difficulty between examination sessions”. Part of the problem lies in the opacity shown by this organization with regard to the construction of its evaluation tool. Why don’t we get teachers more involved, especially those in CEGEPs? Large-scale consultations at regular intervals would also allow the latter to have an ever more in-depth knowledge of the type of questionnaire used and, therefore, to adjust, if necessary, the methods he uses to prepare his students for answer to.
The Obsessive Bias of the Order for the Baccalaureate
That said, one can doubt the will of the OIIQ to collaborate more closely with colleges whose diploma it no longer wants to give direct access to the practice of the profession. The fact that he intends to replace his exam with the one used in the United States and in the other Canadian provinces, where — curious coincidence — you must obtain a baccalaureate to become a nurse, can only reinforce suspicions in this regard.
In this era when some are crying out for the establishment of a professional order for teachers in Quebec, the example of the stubborn and haughty attitude of the OIIQ in the face of the Gariépy report is frankly thought-provoking. Consequently, one can wonder if the mission of this order consists in protecting not the public, but rather an obsession: to discredit the training in nursing care offered by the college network in order to then be able to make it non-qualifying.