The Order of Nurses of Quebec (OIIQ) announces that in the future it will use an admission exam other than its own, used elsewhere in Canada and the United States. He will make the request to the Office des professions du Québec in the coming days in order to be able to use it from 2024.
The president of the OIIQ, Luc Mathieu, made the announcement during a press briefing held on Thursday, following an investigation report by the commissioner for admission to professions, which reported on Tuesday “flaws” and “weaknesses” in last September’s review. The success rate was only 51.4%.
In his report made public on Tuesday, the commissioner for admission to professions Me André Gariépy concluded that “the flaws and weaknesses of the exam likely contributed to the unusually low pass rate of the September 2022 session”. His team estimated, based on a simulation of recalculating scores without adding measurement error, that more than 500 candidates would have passed rather than failed the September 2022 exam.
During the press briefing, the president of the OIIQ acknowledged that his examination could be “improved”. He pointed out that work had begun on this subject in 2021, well before the commissioner’s investigation, with the aim of making the examination “more robust on certain dimensions”.
Luc Mathieu, however, rejected the commissioner’s recommendation to recalculate the marks for last September’s exam without adding a measurement error, which reduced the pass mark from 49 to 53%. The OIIQ says it studied the issue with the contribution of clinical experts – as recommended by the commissioner – who determined that this score “must be greater than 49% to ensure adequate protection of the public”.
“It is not true to say that we are depriving the network of 500 people,” repeated Luc Mathieu during the press briefing. He said that of the 475 failing candidates who registered for the retake exam in March 2023, 70% passed the test.
The success rate for this exam will be known next week, the Order said.
Further details will follow.