The President and CEO of the Fédération des cégeps, Bernard Tremblay, denounces the significant increase in the gap between CEGEP and university students during the last examination of the Order of Nurses of Quebec (OIIQ) and asks that “light be shed” on the issue.
“To see this reality confirmed in this way, which the actors concerned in college already suspected, is downright shocking for these girls and these boys who worked hard for three years in CEGEP to obtain the right to serve Quebec”, he declared in an open letter published on Friday.
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The president of the Federation of CEGEPs, Bernard Tremblay
Thursday, The Press reported that the overall achievement gap between CEGEP students and university students in the last OIIQ exam reached 20 percentage points, whereas since March 2019, it had fluctuated between 0 and 9 percentage points .
The pass rate for the September 2022 entry-to-practice nursing exam has been historically low. Barely 51% of all candidates who applied for the first time passed, compared to 71% in March 2022 and 81% in September 2021.
Unfavorable bias
Mr. Tremblay accuses the OIIQ of claiming that its exam is not biased against the college network and of wanting to make the baccalaureate the threshold for admission to the nursing profession. “For the college network, it is clear that, consciously or not, the OIIQ exam may be imbued with this anti-CEGEP prejudice,” he denounces.
The OIIQ maintains that the September exam has not changed. The president of the Order, Luc Mathieu, says that it was the pandemic that played a significant role in the performance of this cohort of students, who began their studies in the fall of 2019.
Faced with the high rate of failure, an investigation by the Commissioner for Admission to Professions, Mr.e André Gariépy, was launched last November to shed light on the issue.
Mr. Tremblay considers it essential that the Commissioner for Admissions to Professions carry out a “neutral and complete” analysis of the causes of the high failure rate to prevent this situation from recurring in the future. He points out that the people who failed the OIIQ exam are highly qualified and ready to serve a population that needs them more than ever.
With the collaboration of Ariane Lacoursière, The Press