Nearly half of Quebec nursing students fail controversial licensing exam — again

Nursing students who took Quebec's licensing exam in March were about as successful as they were last September — which is to say, not very. 

Just over half the nursing students (53.3 per cent) who took the exam for the first time this spring passed, a success rate similar to that of last fall (51.4 per cent.) 

The new results come in the wake of a damning report from Quebec's commissioner of professions calling last fall's exam flawed.

In the report released last week, André Gariépy, who oversees access to professional orders in Quebec, found issues with the validity and reliability of the September 2022 exam. 

Nursing students had told CBC Montreal that the exam, which is mandatory to obtain a nursing licence in Quebec, didn't reflect what they had been studying in school.

In his report, Gariépy called for immediate changes to the exam and an investigation into the training of nursing students. He also said that the passing grade had been raised without justification.

If the previous mark had been maintained, Gariépy said, more than 500 nursing students who failed would have passed.

In response to the report, Quebec's nursing regulatory body, the Ordre des infirmières et infirmiers du Québec (OIIQ), said it will revise the exam. It said it will also rely on the National Council Licensure Examination for Registered Nurses (NCLEX-RN) as an assessment tool starting early next year.

Waiting until the spring of 2024 to use the new NCLEX-RN assessment tool means aspiring nurses will rely on a modified version of the current test in the fall.

Exam should have been postponed: commissioner

Last week, the OIIQ said the passing mark for the March 2023 exam was established with the contribution of clinical experts, as recommended by the commissioner — all supervised by an experienced psychometrician (a specialist in measuring abilities).

However, Gariépy said in his report that the OIIQ should have postponed the March exam given the situation.

Just 45.4 per cent of nursing students passed the September 2022 licensing exam, compared to a pass rate of between 63 and 96 per cent in previous sittings, according to an earlier report by the commissioner's office. 

For those who took the test for the first time, the failure rate was 48.6 per cent — the highest rate recorded in four years.

The OIIQ had said it was fully aware that the nursing students who took the March exam may raise questions about their test results following the commissioner's report.