My name is Michelle Lalonde, and I'm from the University of Ottawa.
Our university offers several nursing programs, including an entry to the profession program in French or English. The two programs are exactly the same, the content is identical, the admission criteria are completely the same. However, on the anglophone side, the pass rate for the NCLEX-RN exam is 86%, compared to 57% on the francophone side.
Another of our concerns is the marked decrease in the number of francophones taking the exam in French. In 2017, last year, only seven of our students chose to write the exam in French. Although the mother tongue of the majority of our students is French, and they prefer to write the exam in that language, they instead choose to do it in English because of the lack of preparatory resources in French, they feel the translation of the exam is poor and they are afraid of failing the exam in French.
Thank you.