SACE modern history exam fail left students unable to answer question after video glitch

A private school parent has spoken out after several students were left in the lurch by a technical failure during a Year 12 exam that left them unable to answer a vital question.

Students sitting their Year 12 modern history e-exam on Friday were sent into a panic when they discovered a video vital to answering a question could not play.

In a statewide technological glitch, around 10 per cent of students were unable to answer the question.

SACE Board chief executive Michaela Bensley said the education authority would use collected data to predict the student’s score.

“As with all exams, the SACE Board has processes in place for students unable to sit or complete an examination due to circumstances outside their control,” she said.

“This could include receiving a derived mark based on assessments throughout the year.”

She said 112 students were affected out of 1089 sitting the exam, and 10 school sites out of 113. SACE would not confirm the affected schools.

A SACE Board spokeswoman said impacted students were given extra time to complete the exam and can appeal their marks “if they have concerns over their grades”.

Tanya Welden’s son was one of the students affected and she said it was quite overwhelming for him.

“At one point he was locked out of the browser completely,” she told The Advertiser.

“He had trouble viewing one of the source videos. Eventually he got there but, of course the constant disruptions upset the fluency of the exam.

“I don’t see how any of the students (were) able to perform at their best.”

Ms Welden said her son, who is in Year 12 at a Catholic private school, was able to complete all the questions however other students did not fare the same.

“A few students continued to have multiple issues and they were still in the exam room a long time after the allotted exam time,” the retired English and history teacher said.

SACE Board chief executive Michaela Bensley said around 10 per cent of students were subjected to an exam fault.

She said while she believed the use of predicted grades was a good start, she feared for those who would’ve done better than teachers thought.

“I don’t see how this will represent the true capacity of the student,” she said.

“The exam conditions were not ideal, and while they may still perform better than their predicted grade, it is possible that if conditions were optimum, they may have performed better.”

Ms Welden said the “only truly fair outcome is for the exam to be readministered” but “I doubt this will be possible. In fairness none of the exam results should contribute to the overall grade”.

A SACE Board spokesperson said 70 per cent of a student’s grade was based on school assessments while the exam was worth 30 per cent of their overall grade.

Ms Welden also suggested affected students be allocated bonus points to make up for the glitch.

“The idea of exams is that the conditions should be as identical as possible. This didn’t happen here,” she said.

Ms Bensley said the glitch was an isolated incident.

“The SACE Board can confirm this was not an issue with the e-exam system,” Ms Bensley said.

“After investigation, it became apparent it was a specific issue for a small group of schools using the same IT infrastructure.

“Over the weekend the SACE board worked with the impacted schools to help them identify, resolve and successfully test the system, providing confidence that this issue will not re-occur in remaining electronic examinations.”

Ms Bensley told ABC Radio that while she can assure no student would be disadvantaged by the glitch, students would be able to appeal their grades.

She said schools had experienced exam interruptions in prior years, such as internet cutting out or fire alarms.

But she said this particular glitch, which affected a limited group of schools, was “unusual”.

“The schools are really to be commended around how they supported their students going forward,” Ms Bensley said.

“We have confidence that these students won’t be disadvantaged and equally for students that are sitting exams this week that they have the confidence that the issue won’t re-occur.”