Cape Breton nursing school grads fared best on 2015 licensing exam

Nursing graduates from Cape Breton University fared the best in last year's licensing exam, according to numbersobtained by CBC News through an access to information request.

Of the 61 CBU students who took the test, only 11 failed a pass rate of 82 per cent.

The much larger class of 2015fromDalhousie University had the second-best pass rate in the province. On their first try, 208 Dal grads took the test and158 passed while50 failed a pass rate of 76 per cent.

St.FX hadlowest success rate

St. Francis Xavier University'snursing students struggled the most with the new computer-based test. Of the 124 nursing grads at St. FX, 90 passed and34 faileda 72.6 per cent pass rate.

Thosetest results seemedto spook some nursing graduates at all schools. Of the 95 who failed the test the first go around, 82took the test again last year. Fiftypassed and 32 failed for a 61 per cent pass rate.

Cape Breton students did better thanthose at St. FX or Dal in their second attempt,but that may be because only ninestudents wrote the test,compared to 45 Dal grads and 28 from St. FX.

The third attempt

Between the schools, only fourstudents had a third kick at the can. Two Dal students failed, two at St. FX passed.

Those nursing studentswould normallyhave to redotheir training, but the College of Registered Nursesof Nova Scotia has recently decided to give students who fail an unlimited number of tries to pass the exam.

These results are included in an appendix to a report by the college. It was sentto the provincial government,but the college refused to release it to the public.

Numerous email exchanges

In the lead up to the public release of the overalltest scores on Sept. 8,2015, there were numerous email exchanges between the college and provincial bureaucrats. Both were worried about the impact of anticipatedhigher failrates and the inevitablecriticism that would ensue.

Last July, the Department of Health and Wellnessprepared a minister's briefing "on the topic of Higher than Usual Failure Rate on New National Entry-to-Practice Examination for Registered Nurses."

A briefing note prepared for that meeting includedinformationthat suggested the college originally thoughtthe exam results would not change afterthetraditional pencil-and-paper-based exam was replacedwith the new computerized system.

"Throughout the development and implementationof the new exam over the last three years, CRNNS(College of Registered Nurses of Nova Scotia) has assured the Department of Health and Wellness that there was no reason to anticipate any change in pass rates between the old and new exams," the background note read.

Redacted information

In the week leading up to the official release of the 2015 results, the communications team at the Department of Health and Wellnesscrafted "Key Messages" for Minister Leo Glavine, but that information has been redacted from the documents sent to CBC News.

A week after the results were made public, internal departmental emails focus on the college'spolicy for issuing temporary licenses, whichallow those who'vefailed the entrance exam to continue workingwith certain conditions.

"The policy will be revised to permit those who have failed the NCLEXtwice to apply for a reissued temporarylicencewith the same conditionals and restrictions that are applied once someone fails the exam the first time," wroteCindy Cruickshank, executive director of the department'sHealth System Workforce Branch.

She also noted"No news release is planned" to announce or explain the change in policy.

'Monitoring the situation closely'

Department staff have continued to keep tabs on the issue.

In an email dated Nov17, 2015,Cruickshank sentthe minister's executive assistant Peter Bragga note that said,"We are monitoring the situation closely."

The department is keeping in touch with the college, as it shares updateson how well Nova Scotia graduates are doing on subsequent tests.

"The overall pass rate for Nova Scotia graduates as of today is 87 per cent," Cruickshankswrote toher team on Nov. 27.

According to the data pulled from the information request, the pass rate for the three universitiesafter the first, second and third attempts made bystudents is 89.1 per cent.