By Caroline Schelle, Alex Crowe and Gemma Grant
Victoria’s VCE exam authority is in damage control after questions similar to those found “hidden” on sample assessments turned up in the real tests – despite the state government demanding amendments to the material weeks ago.
Education Minister Ben Carroll vowed to get to the bottom of the bungle after questions for some subjects were inadvertently uploaded to the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) website.
Bentleigh Secondary College students sit the VCE English exam on October 29.Credit: Joe Armao
The questions were removed from the sample test material – which the authority refers to as cover pages – when the mistake was discovered.
But some students had already downloaded them, while others accessed them using a popular internet archive tool.
By selecting blank sections of the cover pages on their screen, students could see “hidden” text, which could be copied and pasted into a new document to reveal the words. Legal studies, Australian politics and business management are among the subjects affected.
Carroll on Thursday dodged questions about whether the VCAA should be reviewed after the latest gaffe.
He said there had been change after last year – when mistakes were made on exams – including the appointment of a new chief executive and experts to look at how exams were prepared and written.
Instead, he blamed the bungle on human error and sought to reassure students.
“It’s still not an acceptable human error, and I will get to the bottom of this,” he said.
“There will not be any penalties, [students] will not be inadvertently affected in their marks or examinations. They should put their best foot forward.”
Carroll also revealed that he had learnt of the bungle two weeks ago.
“We have been monitoring this, giving strong instructions to the VCAA to rewrite all of the exam questions to make sure no student was given an unfair advantage,” he said.
One VCE student, speaking anonymously for privacy reasons, told The Age that the error left her doubtful she would get the ATAR – a ranking measure used for admission into many tertiary courses – she had aimed for.
“Now knowing that people had this unfair advantage where they knew the questions, and they could have pre-prepared it or run it past tutors, it sort of throws the curve,” she said.
“I just feel like I have no faith in the system any more because it’s unfairly advantaged those who haven’t done the work.”
Anna Costa said her daughter, Sienna, had been “mortified” when she learnt of the fiasco.
“The fact that they’ve tweaked [the exams] does not create an even playing field,” Costa said.
“As my daughter said to us, ‘If I had seen that beforehand, I [could] have worked through it, and I would have known how to solve it in the exam.’”
The VCAA insisted that no exams were compromised, as the questions were changed after the error was discovered in October.
However, material seen by The Age shows almost identical content was used on some exams.
VCAA chief executive officer Kylie White, who acted in the role for 10 months before her permanent appointment two months ago, conceded some exams contained “similar” material to the cover pages.
“We discovered that there was an issue before the written exams commenced, and we were able to then review our exams and check that our exam questions were different to the sample material that had been inadvertently included,” White told ABC radio on Thursday.
Victorian Education Minister Ben Carroll. Credit: Joe Armao
“It might have included some of the prompt material, or it could have included one or two questions … those questions and those prompt materials may be similar, but they’re not the same as to what’s in exams.”
White said steps had been taken to ensure it would not happen again. This year’s final VCE exams will be held on November 20.
“I think exams have been prepared with extensive quality assurance, and that our students can be reassured that … their exams have not been impacted,” she said.
Carroll said he had met with education department leaders and had spoken to White.
“I’ve asked some hard questions of the chief executive officer today for the VCAA,” Carroll said.
Opposition education spokeswoman Jess Wilson has called for an independent review of the VCAA and the exam process as a whole.
“It is absolutely staggering that we are here again talking about the VCE exams being compromised,” Wilson told reporters on Thursday.
Wilson said it was the third consecutive year the integrity of the exams had been compromised, and pointed out that five assessments remained in the 2024 exam period.
In 2022 and 2023, mistakes were made on maths exams. Six students were also given the wrong Chinese language test last year.
“The minister must ensure there are new exams and no student is at a disadvantage because he cannot manage his own agencies,” Wilson said.
”The bungled exam period this time has affected more students than what it did last year … [We’re] looking at a worse situation.”
The Victorian Commercial Teachers Association – which represents teachers of subjects including accounting, legal studies and economics – wrote to the VCAA this week after being alerted to the “hidden content”.
”We ... requested a thorough investigation and appropriate actions to uphold fairness and integrity in the VCE assessment process,” it said in an email seen by The Age.
Cover pages are made available by the VCAA in the lead-up to exams. They are designed to indicate the structure, number of questions and time needed to complete the assessment – but not the content.
The error also affected the English examination – which has the highest number of enrolments at more than 40,000 students. A different prompt was used for the exam on October 29.
The erroneous cover pages can still be accessed through archival tools.
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