VCAA execs took overseas trips on eve of exam bungle

Executives from the embattled Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority took nine overseas trips in the past financial year, while just $82,000 was spent on exam “setting and vetting”.

Executives from the embattled Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority took nine overseas trips in the past financial year, including one by a former CEO to celebrate an elite school’s birthday.

The trip to China and Singapore in September 2023 by former CEO Stephen Gniel marked the 10th anniversary of Haileybury College’s Tianjin campus and included a formal celebration dinner and speech.

Mr Gniel, who was appointed weeks later to be the acting CEO of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), also held meetings in Singapore with senior education leaders.

The principal of Haileybury, Derek Scott, is on the ACARA board.

Former VCAA chief Stephen Gniel went to China to celebrate a decade of Haileybury’s Tianjin campus. Picture: Ian Currie

This was just prior to the 2023 VCE exam period, which was marred by errors in maths, among other subjects.

The seven other trips taken by VCAA senior executives were to China, Vietnam, Vanuatu, Malaysia and Indonesia, where around 500 VCE students sit exams.

The overseas travel also included a trip to New Zealand by one director to undertake a subject towards their Master of Public Administration degree.

The annual report states the trip “improved the officer’s confidence, critical thinking and skills for managing complex challenges”.

Such skills were in demand during the 2024 exam period, where questions from 65 exams were leaked by the VCAA on its own website on test instruction sheets.

The questions appeared on 40 actual exams which were not rewritten sufficiently by the VCAA, even after the leaks were discovered.

VCAA chief executive Kylie White stood down in the wake of the 2024 exam bungle.

Documents provided to the Herald Sun also show the exam authority paid $13m from its $107m operational budget to contractors and consultants.

The leading amount was $2.7m, paid to educational resources company Pearson Australia for services relating to the General Achievement Test, VCE written examinations and delivery of NAPLAN.

Other payments include $78,000 to Professor John Firth to undertake “VCAA reform projects”.

Former VCAA chief John Firth was paid $78,000 to undertake ‘reform projects’.

Professor Firth, a former CEO of the VCAA, was brought in to help the exam body address the impact of the 2024 leaks and moderate affected exams.

Out of the VCAA’s $10m consultant budget, just $82,650 was paid for “services relating to exam setting and vetting”.

The money was paid to Heatherwood School for the production of braille VCE exams for vision-impaired students.

The VCAA annual report also shows the authority recorded a net surplus of $13.658m in 2023-24 and paid its CEO more than $400,000 a year.

It has 236 full-time equivalent staff and another 5000 employed on a casual basis to administer exams.

Its permanent staff are Victorian public servants who will collectively receive $1.3m more a year under pay rises under the new Victorian Public Sector Enterprise Bargaining Agreement 2024.

The payments include a $5600 one-off lump-sum payment and a mobility payment.

A spokesman for Mr Gniel told the Herald Sun he “visited China and Singapore in an official capacity for the VCAA and Victorian Department of Education”.

Background information provided states his appointment to ACARA was run with due process, involving representatives from the federal Department of Education, the ACARA board and an independent person.