VCE students burn books in fiery end to controversial exam period

Year 12 students have set fire to their uniforms and books while lashing out at the exam authority following the leaked questions scandal.

The 2024 VCE exams has wrapped up with education officials vowing to audit every student’s marks to determine who had benefited from leaked questions in 56 subjects appearing on final exams.

Triumphant students burned their books and threw papers in the air to celebrate the end of the most controversial exam period in Victorian history, with many directing negative comments at the exam authority’s ineptitude.

In final-day developments, one more embarrassing leak can be revealed in the Applied Computing: Data Analytics exam sat on November 12, which was marked out of 100 but contained a six-mark question that was identical to the question accessible on the exam’s corrupted cover sheet.

The real question merely changed the name of the people from Bob to Tom and Charlie to Georgie, giving those who saw the leak a substantial advantage.

Students filmed themselves burning books and uniforms as they celebrated the end of the VCE exams.

However, the much-discussed leak of a Chinese Second Language paper by tutors was exposed as a hoax.

Senior state bureaucrats said they would not be “looking for proof” that students had accessed the leaked questions, which were available for a week on the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority’s (VCAA) own website before pulled by staff.

Rather, they said they would look at each student’s “data”, searching for outliers in every question in all affected exams, and then comparing it with all of their marks in all other subjects.

Students are alarmed at the notion of losing marks as a result of the leaks, particularly because the VCAA cannot prove definitively who accessed the questions before the exams and those who did not.

They argue this data-driven approach may harm those who did well in a question due to hard work, not accessing the leaked questions.

The interim head of the VCAA, Dr Marcia Devlin, did not appear at state parliamentary estimates yesterday, but Jenny Atta, the head of the Department of Education admitted there has been a “deterioration over time” in the quality of work done by the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA).

Ms Atta denied any plans to disband the VCAA and pledged to “give the minister any support to establish the review he’s called for”.

In other updates, education bureaucrats distanced themselves from the VCAA’s bungle, with Ms Atta noting that “neither the department or any other agency or individual can interfere or direct them in the carriage of these responsibilities”.

“It was my understanding that all impacted exams … were to be adjusted and the question is clearly that some of them were not adjusted sufficiently.”

Ms Atta said she didn’t know how many days the papers were online before they were discovered by the VCAA or how many subjects were substantially affected. Ms Atta said the authority was not expecting results to be delayed at this stage. The full list of 56 compromised subjects has not yet been released.

Education Opposition spokeswoman Jess Wilson said the “VCAA’s failure today to front up and answer to the VCE exam debacle adds insult to injury for VCE students, teachers and families”.

“With the VCE exam period now concluded, this debacle must be referred to the Victorian Ombudsman for a truly independent and comprehensive investigation,” she said.

Originally published as VCE students burn books in fiery end to controversial exam period