By Robyn Grace and Emma Koehn
Education Minister Ben Carroll has called for a full investigation into errors in this year’s VCE exams, saying he is disappointed in a series of “stuff-ups” that should never have occurred.
Carroll said on Monday he had asked the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) to review its processes after six students were given the wrong Chinese language exam last week.
Education Minister Ben Carroll.Credit: Wayne Taylor
The incident followed a number of mistakes in this year’s maths exams, and confusing typos in several other tests. Thousands of general and specialist maths students were awarded bonus points due to errors.
Carroll said he asked the VCAA to ensure academic institutions were more closely involved in the writing and vetting of future exams.
The minister said it was “traumatic” for anything to go wrong during a year 12 exam and authorities had to ensure the same mistakes were not repeated.
Carroll said he had met VCAA representatives since the exam period had begun and would meet the authority again on Monday.
“I am disappointed,” he said. “The stuff-ups should not have occurred in the first place. That’s why I’ve asked for a full review.”
Mathematician Dr Marty Ross on Monday welcomed the move to include academics in exam preparation but said any investigation should be conducted by another authority.
“I don’t know why anyone would believe VCAA can monitor themselves,” he said. “VCAA twice investigated the errors on the 2022 mathematics exams and twice exonerated themselves.”
Carroll and the authority’s chief executive Stephen Gniel were forced to apologise at the start of the month after an error was discovered in the second general mathematics paper.
Gniel, who has since been appointed acting chief of the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority, apologised again days later over an incorrectly labelled diagram in the second specialist mathematics test.
Exams have also been plagued with typos that, while not technically errors, teachers say could put off already-anxious students.
One mother said her son sat last week’s Chinese Second Language Advanced exam, where six students were incorrectly given the easier general exam. She said the mistake made both exams unfair.
The mother told The Age details from the general exam had now been revealed online ahead of its sitting on Wednesday. Students from the advanced cohort, meanwhile, would be disadvantaged by their peers sitting an easier test.
VCAA said last week that six students at two schools were given the wrong paper, and it was “working directly with the two schools to ensure that no students are disadvantaged”.
Students have since called for VCAA to provide a new Chinese Second Language exam for students on Wednesday.
“They should be called out on such a huge mistake,” one student said on Reddit.
Teachers who would not speak publicly on the error were waiting for confirmation about whether the exam would be altered, telling this masthead they were also concerned about the fairness of the exam process.
Seventy university mathematicians this month wrote an open letter to Carroll urging a revamp of the process for setting and vetting the papers and seeking further investigation into five errors in 2022 papers.
Ross, who launched a campaign for greater VCE scrutiny following mistakes in last year’s exams, said better utilising academics was an “obvious and excellent move”.
Ross said VCAA had done what it could to remedy the publicised errors in this year’s exams, but that could not fix the damage.
“The grading cannot possibly be fair and valid, and some students will inevitably be disadvantaged,” he said.
“But also, the issues with the mathematics exams go well beyond the publicised errors, and include a number of poorly written questions. It is not at all clear how these questions will be graded.”
In a letter written to Ross last month, the authority said it had engaged Deloitte and two independent state education bodies to review last year’s exams.
The inquiries did not identify any material misconduct, breaches or deviations from policies or procedures during the development of the exams, the letter said.
Investigations also found there were no “major mathematical errors”, but identified “room for improvement” in language and grammar.
The VCAA was contacted for comment.
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