Victoria Curriculum and Assessment Authority chief Kylie White resigns after botched VCE exams

Two more VCE exams sat by students on Monday morning have been caught up in the cheat sheets scandal, as the head of Victoria’s VCE exams system abruptly resigned.

Two more VCE exams sat by students on Monday morning contained almost identical questions to the information that was leaked on cover note papers, the Herald Sun can reveal.

There was a further bungle labelled as “sloppy” by one teacher, with the formula sheet for Systems Engineering not provided with the exam booklets, with schools needing to print it out before the exam.

Food Studies and Systems Engineering, which are studied by more than 5000 students, were among 56 out of 116 exams compromised by a Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) bungle, after “inadvertent material” was published on its website in October.

In an embarrassing press conference, Education Minister Ben Carroll was unable to say exactly how many of these 56 exams contained the leaked questions in the final papers. However, he admitted a “handful” are substantially compromised.

He was also unable to confirm that students who continue to sit exams will be affected, with bureaucrats admitting that they are only able to fix up marks, not rewrite exams which were delivered to schools on November 1.

Two more exams have been caught up in the cheat sheets scandal.

In Systems Engineering, two multiple choice questions – both worth one mark each – on Monday’s exam were vastly similar to the content that was leaked on the cover note.

For example, multiple choice question two asked students to identify an object from a diagram, with three of the multiple choice answers identical to the hidden information on the cover sheets, being resistor, transistor and light-emitting diode.

Then question three in both contexts were about a belt drive with students asked to find a pulley ratio in the real exam and output revolutions per minute in the hidden question.

The similarities were greater in Section B, question one of the exam with students given the exact same diagram – a variable resistor and a 330 resistor, wired in parallel.

They were then told the voltage of a graph, which was the same in both instances – V = 200 x I.

While the case study was reworded, the questions associated with it appeared to be completely rewritten.

Meanwhile, two multiple choice questions were leaked from the Food Studies exam which were each worth one mark, along with a 14-point case study and questions from Section B.

However, in the final exam, the first question had words substituted in a hasty rewrite.

The leaked question asked about the “main role of the tongue in digestion” with one answer being “to help in the mechanical breakdown of food”.

The actual exam asked about the “main role of the salivary glands in digestion” and one of the answers was “to help in the mechanical breakdown of food”.

Similarly, question two was similar in form, but different in what it actually asked.

Section B was also about sustainability, but it was not similar.

One teacher said of the Food Studies exam: “You can see how they ‘replaced’ the question. Unfortunately, they were unable to do the same for Business and Legal.”

It comes as the head of Victoria’s VCE exams system abruptly resigned after thousands of students were given access to cheat sheets containing almost identical questions and case studies to those in their final exams.

Education Minister Ben Carroll on Monday announced Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority chief executive Kylie White had left the role.

Ms White was recruited into the top role – which came with an annual salary of more than $380,000 – following last year’s math exam error blunder which prompted the Bennett review.

Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership chief executive Dr Marcia Devlin will step in as interim VCAA chief executive pending a permanent appointment.

VCAA chief executive Kylie White has resigned over the leaked questions. Picture: Supplied

It comes as students sat Food Studies and Systems Engineering exams on Monday – two of the subjects compromised after questions were published on the publicly available cover notes uploaded to the VCAA website before they were republished after October 10.

Pressure has been on Ms White to step down from her role since the Herald Sun broke the story on November 13, particularly given her initial defence of the VCAA’s actions.

Mr Carroll confirmed Ms White handed in her resignation on Saturday.

“Dr Marcia Devlin AM has commenced (as VCAA chief executive) today.

Marcia is a highly capable leader...she has a deep understanding of the VCAA’s activities, and previously sat on the VCAA’s board during the pandemic,” Mr Carroll said.

Dr Devlin said her main priorities in her new role was ensuring that the “2024 VCE exams are conducted fairly, and that no student has an unfair advantage or is disadvantaged”.

Of the 116 VCE exams, 56 have been affected by leaks in some form, because the VCAA publishing guidelines weren’t followed correctly, Mr Carroll said.

The VCAA has apologised to students for the biggest leak of VCE exam material in decades.

Victorian Education minister Ben Carroll. Picture: Asanka Ratnayake

Mr Carroll said an assessment tool would now be used to ensure students were graded fairly.

The implementation of this process will be overseen by an independent advisory panel of experts chaired by Professor John Firth.

“We will look to see whether there’s anomalies in (students’ performance). There are a range of statistical tools that are available to us to look at comparing performance on these questions, the effective questions versus unaffected questions,” he said.

But Professor Firth couldn’t rule out whether marks would be taken off for those students who had anomalies in their performance.

“I don’t want to pre-empt anything but that could happen,” he said.

“There’s plenty of high quality, reliable data available for us to use, so we’re not shooting in the dark here. There is plenty of evidence and plenty of material available for us to analyse.”

Other options included invalidating questions.

Mr Carroll reiterated his fury and disappointment in the VCAA several times, and apologised to students and their families affected by the blunder.

“I am extremely disappointed by what has occurred. I have instructed the VCAA to take all necessary action to ensure that all students are treated fairly and no student is disadvantaged in the marking of this year’s exams,” he said.

“I am satisfied that, supported by additional independent experts, the right processes are in place to ensure that every single student has the best chance to achieve their best.”

Of the 116 VCE exams, 56 have been affected by leaks in some form.

When asked why Mr Carroll didn’t act on the cover note “publication error” sooner after finding out about the initial details on October 14, he insisted he was reassured the issue had been rectified before students sat exams.

“I was given reassurances leading into these exams, and following the Bennett review last year, I as the minister was being proactive, always asking questions, always underlining how important VCE examinations are,” he said.

“What has let us all down has been his publication error of putting the examination cover sheets with instructions and embedded questions in there as well.

“That’s why I’m deeply upset and angry that a publishing error has occurred, the publishing guidelines were not followed.”

Mr Carroll added he still had unanswered questions of the VCAA, but didn’t say what those questions were.

An assessment tool will now be used to ensure students are graded fairly.

He also reassured the VCAA was working with the Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre and universities to see if adjustments needed to be made to the ATAR release date or university offers.

“We are working with all of our admissions, our universities, right across the board to make sure timelines everything goes as smoothly as possible,” Mr Carroll said.

“We will be very clear if we look like we do need more time, we will work towards making sure that all that information is distributed.”

Opposition education spokeswoman Jess Wilson called on Mr Carroll to take “complete responsibility” for the fiasco.

“Minister Ben Carroll has not only overseen the debacle of the 2024 VCE exam period but he’s also been complicit in the cover up,” she said.

“The Minister has known from mid October that the VCE exams have been compromised. We now know that nearly half, if not more, of the VCE exams have been compromised.

“This is unacceptable and Minister Ben Carroll has overseen this disarray from day one.

“He never should have taken assurances from an inexperienced CEO at VCAA and from an organisation that over the previous two years has seen mistake on mistake on mistake when it comes to VCE exams.”

Ms Wilson accused Mr Carroll of prioritising bureaucrats over Victorian students.

The opposition is considering referring the scandal to the Victorian Ombudsman.