By Mary Ward
The state’s education standards authority is investigating after some HSC students were mistakenly able to access their results early Saturday morning.
A set of preliminary results for each course - which are due to be released on Thursday morning - were accessed by some students before 10am.
Students were able to access their results early for a brief window on Saturday morning.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
Students shared news of the leak on HSC discussion social media groups on Saturday morning, widely sharing a link that allowed them to access their marks.
“For a short period this morning, some students were able to access a preliminary set of 2022 HSC Results,” NESA confirmed in a statement.
A screenshot of the results page, as shared on Instagram.
“NESA is investigating the cause of the issue and sincerely apologises for any inconvenience caused. Final HSC results will be released this Thursday.”
North Strathfield Year 12 student Angus McAlister accessed his results on the link after seeing it posted on one of his friend’s Instagram stories.
“I basically woke up and saw one of my mates had posted it,” he said, adding then saw the link on Facebook groups and Discord servers for HSC students.
McAlister, who knew he had received a showcase nomination for a major work subject, said he was “very happy” with his marks.
“The link is patched now,” he said. “But I hope those are my marks.”
It is the second consecutive year HSC results have accidentally been released early, after the 2021 results were mistakenly published online in January two days before they were due to be formally released.
Those results were also pulled from the website within a manner of hours.
Merewether’s Lucy Redpath said she was also “pretty happy” with her results. The selective school Year 12 student learnt about the leak in a text from a friend on Saturday morning.
“It was pretty overwhelming, was not prepared for it on a Saturday morning,” she said, adding that “most of her friends” accessed the results using the link.
“I did an accelerated subject last year and I found out the same way. Can’t believe it happened twice.”
In Ingleburn, Saqib Rashid saw the link on his year group’s Discord server, after waking up early to pray. He accessed his results around 6am.
Five of his friends also used the link to access their results. He was not thrilled with his marks, but said his friends who did not manage to see their results before NESA shut the link down were more concerned.
“They’re much more nervous than they probably would have otherwise been,” he said.
Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said she was informed by NESA of “an IT issue which allowed a small number of students to have an early look at their HSC results” on Saturday morning.
“I’m very disappointed this has happened and have asked NESA for an explanation as to how this occurred. They have assured me that the error has been fixed and everything is on track for HSC results to be released on Thursday,” she said, apologising on behalf of NESA for the “confusion and stress this has created for students”.
Labor education spokesperson Prue Car said the leak of results for a second year in a row indicated “the Perrottet government has dropped the ball on what should be a well established process”.
“This bungle has just added unnecessary stress on students, many of whom have no certainty if they were shown their final results or not,” she said, calling for students to be able to “see their results equally”.
Mitchell criticised Car for her comments.
“It is incredibly disappointing that NSW Labor, with no understanding of the issue, chose to add to student stress and confusion. This shows weak leadership from [Labor leader] Chris Minns and a lack of empathy for HSC students,” Mitchell said.
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