‘They are not mucking around, these parents’: Scale of selective test chaos emerges

Frustrated parents are weighing up whether their children should resit the high-stakes selective schools test after chaotic crowds and technical glitches led to a breakdown in testing at three major centres last week.

Tensions are high inside tutor Tim Ricketts’ selective school coaching classes. Ricketts, who runs a tutoring centre in North Rocks, said some parents fear students whose test was postponed will now have an unfair advantage. Others, whose child made it through Friday’s exam, are grappling with whether their child should reattempt the test.

Tutor Tim Ricketts says every child should be able to resit the test.Credit: Edwina Pickles

Thousands of children sat the selective and opportunity class (OC) tests at various centres across Sydney. At Randwick and Canterbury, police were called after surging crowds led to the tests being postponed. At these venues and Olympic Park, where there were technical glitches, 4628 students who sat the tests would have the chance to re-sit them within three weeks at public schools.

It was the first time the exam had been held online, managed by online education provider Janison Education.

Ricketts questioned whether the integrity of the test had been damaged.

“No one understands what has gone on or how they can resolve it,” he said. “For some parents, this [test] is as equally important as the HSC.”

He said some parents see the bungle as an opportunity for their child to squeeze in a couple of weeks’ more study.

“That’s how cut-throat it is. They are not mucking around, these parents,” Ricketts said.

“I feel the only fair thing to do is for everyone to resit the tests.

“The issue that is going to come up is when someone [who did the test later] gets an offer and the kid who did the test earlier misses out.”

An exam invigilator from the Canterbury site, who spoke anonymously to speak freely about the test last Friday, said parents had begun arriving at 7am for the opportunity class exam.

“There was no security on the grounds. From the minute we let the children inside, we had trouble with the computers. We only had two IT staff for 1300 or 1400 spread over three levels. They were run off their feet.

“It was just crazy, and every time something went wrong, we had to file an incident report. There weren’t enough staff.”

She said about 100 ushers, invigilators and other staff were at Canterbury. “We were dealing with kids who were freaking out and totally traumatised by what was going on. You could not make up a worse nightmare than what we went through that day.

“The computers were either lagging or they just stopped working.

“We had a mob of parents at the door, and we couldn’t get the OC students out. It must have been 200 people deep. That’s when the police took over.

“The children could hear everything the police were saying. They were sitting at their desks with their hands on their ears, so many of them crying.”

As students await new test dates to be set, not everyone believes the extra study time is advantageous. Caringbah mother Jenny Wang worries her son will lose motivation after his exam was postponed.

“This is like athletes, they tone up their muscles and get their muscles ready to bolt, and then they tell them: Stop. You can’t run yet. And then they get cold … It’s a big halt [for them],” she said.

At least 51 students at Olympic Park experienced technical issues during the exam. However, parent Karen Hu said her son experienced tech issues in Canterbury.

“He reached up his hand for the staff, and they told him they can’t do anything, and he just has to wait,” Hu said. “He was a bit distressed because he was worried all his answers would be gone, and he would have to redo it.”

Hu does not want her son to do the test again due to the stress.

Some parents are petitioning for a royal commission into the NSW Education Department’s management of public education following Friday’s chaos.

Online provider Janison, whose agreement with the department was expected to earn it $45 million over five years, saw its stock crash to a record low on Monday.

The department did not respond to questions about which test result would be used for students who retake the exam.

A Department of Education spokesperson said they are in contact with families whose tests were postponed and “will ensure they too receive updated information and support”.

“Our priority is to ensure every student has a fair, safe, and supportive testing experience, and we are working closely with our test provider to make sure that happens.”

In a statement, Janison said occasional disruptions can occur in any large-scale digital assessment due to a range of factors including “local infrastructure variability and site-specific technical limitations”.

with Colin Kruger

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