‘Massive breach of trust’: VCE Business students demand apology from VCAA after exam leak

After countless hours prepping for final exams, student Kayla Wonder has demanded VCAA rectify its question leak blunder that “compromised” the Business exam — even suggesting a scoring method fix of her own.

VCE Business Management student Kayla Wonder is demanding answers and action from VCAA to compensate students impacted by exam question leaks. Picture: Josie Hayden

A frustrated and saddened VCE Business Management student has called for the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) to apologise and outline the steps it will take to compensate current students for the widespread leaks.

While Education Minister Ben Carroll has called for a thorough investigation into the VCAA in order to ensure the integrity of the 2025 exam process, VCAA CEO Kylie White has continued to publicly insist that “all students can be reassured about the quality of the exams.”

The 90,000 students who have sat VCE exams this year have not been given any information as to how the accessing of exam material in at least 22 subjects will affect the marking of exams and the calculation of university entry scores.

Kayla Wonder, 18, said no student “will ever trust the VCAA again”.

“It’s a massive breach of trust. The VCAA are the ones always on the moral high ground. I’d rather they apologised as I’d have more respect for them if they did,” she said.

“For VCE students who’ve put in countless hours prepping for their final exams, finding out that the exam material was compromised feels incredibly unfair and disrupts the whole merit-based system we rely on.”

“The suggestion from VCAA that this leak has ‘no adverse impact’ is, frankly, dismissive and fails to acknowledge the stress and disruption this breach has caused. For students who sat the exam honestly, the value of their hard work feels undermined,” she said.

Ms Wonder said she would like the option of a derived score for Business Management because of the extent of the leaks.

But she said the General Achievement Test (GAT) which such a score is based on “is not representative of our marks because we didn’t work for it”.

“They should compare this with our exam mark and give us the higher score,” she said.

“Another option would be to consider the GAT and combine it with school assessment and exam results.”

“Allowing students to be judged by the academic record they have built, rather than an exam compromised by no fault of their own, would be the most just solution,” she said.

Kayla Wonder has said students that saw the leaked questions before sitting the exam received an unfair advantage. Picture: Josie Hayden

Ms Wonder said the mistakes by the VCAA would also affect aggregate scores and ATARs. “Whatever ATARs students get are not accurate for half the students who accessed the material,” she said.

“I was really counting on Bus Man for good marks and now who knows?”

She also said it was wrong to assert, as Ms White had done, that students who saw case study material, but not the questions were not advantaged.

“Any one who got a case study prompt could just put it into Chat GPT and ask it to predict questions and they would get a whole lot that would align with the exam.

“VCE is a big deal, it’s a big part of school. Everyone wants to be on the honour roll.

“This issue highlights the necessity for VCAA to prioritise students’ best interests, ensuring that the system remains free from undue advantage or disadvantage.

Ms Wonder’s marking solution has been put to the VCAA and Education Minister Ben Carroll for comment.