Press Release

Thursday, January 31, 2019

Université de Moncton reacts to the NANB response following the Commissioner of Official Languages for New Brunswick investigation

The following is a statement by Mr. Jacques Paul Couturier, Interim President and Vice-Chancellor of Université de Moncton. It comes in the wake of the official response of the Nurses Association of New Brunswick (NANB), in response to the investigation report of the Commissioner of Official Languages for New Brunswick concerning the NCLEX-RN examination used since 2015 to determine entry to the practise of nursing in New Brunswick.

Université de Moncton is the only university to offer the Bachelor of Nursing degree program in the French language in New Brunswick. The program has been offered for over 50 years at the Moncton campus and for over 20 years at the Edmundston and Shippagan campuses by highly-qualified teaching staff. Hundreds of graduates deliver quality health services in both official languages in New Brunswick and elsewhere.

Our nursing program received its most recent provincial accreditation in 2017 from NANB, as well as national accreditation from the Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing. These accreditations confirm that the Université de Moncton School of Nursing meets the highest education standards.

Our institution is always open to suggestions for improving our study programs. However, we object to the comments of NANB, which we believe reflect a lack of respect towards our students, faculty and our nursing program.

There is a sizeable gap in terms of the preparation resources available for New Brunswick’s Francophone graduates when compared to those of their Anglophone counterparts for the New Brunswick nursing profession’s entry-to-practice examination (NCLEX-RN). New graduates of our nursing program have the right to study and practice in French while having access to the same resources as their Anglophone counterparts.

Moreover, the Commissioner of Official Languages has come to the same conclusion in its final response to NANB, which was also made public. The Commissioner feels that the question remains regarding the gap in examination preparation resources for the NCLEX-RN examination.

Today, Université de Moncton has decided to pull out of the facilitation process organized by the provincial government with NANB. We feel that NANB is determined to retain the NCLEX-RN examination as the New Brunswick nursing profession’s entrance examination. In our opinion, the use of a bilingual, Canadian entrance examination remains the best solution and would offer Francophone and Anglophone students the same resources to prepare them for their entry-to-practice examination.



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