‘Just trying to help’: Junior staffer to blame for VCE exam leak debacle

A VCE exam leak that plunged the entire year 12 test process into crisis was sparked by a well-meaning junior staff member who accidentally produced corrupted cover sheets in what’s been described as “a minor error with major implications”.

It took one junior staff member less than a day to plunge the entire year 12 exam process into chaos in 2024 by unintentionally producing corrupted VCE exam cover sheets.

Enabled by managerial and executive ineptitude, the well-meaning short-term contractor came up with a new, faster approach for developing online exam instruction sheets.

He created 74 in one day which were uploaded to the exam authority website on October 4 after a cursory glance from a supervisor. No-one realised 65 of them contained exam questions hidden in plain sight.

They were downloaded 6000 times before being pulled down a week later.

The short-termer was described by one VCAA insider as a “junior bear with a bright idea who was just trying to help”.

“It was hell and everyone was under huge pressure to get things done because we were running so behind. He had an idea of how to make things more efficient, that’s all he was doing?”

VCE Will Sit Exams at School, McKinnon Secondary College. Picture: Nicole Cleary

Independent reviewer of the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) Dr Yehudi Blacher said it was “a minor error with major implications,”

“One member of the unit approached the responsible manager with a suggestion for a new approach to the creation of cover pages,” he detailed in a report released last week.

“Limited detail was provided on the new approach, and no formal approval was requested or given.”

The usual method of creating cover sheets was to create new files with only the exam instructions, but this eager casual suggested using the actual exams, then removing the questions using the Adobe InDesign software.

This process was flawed because questions were still visible when blank spaces on the cover sheet were highlighted and the hidden text cut and pasted into a word document.

Cover sheets contain the exam instructions, but no questions, and are issued ahead of the tests to help students prepare.

The process was not closely scrutinised by managers because cover sheet preparation is seen as a minor administrative task, not a high-risk activity.

Staff in the VCAA were already under pressure because of missed deadlines earlier in the year, new exam templates to make them more easily read, an organisational restructure and an office relocation.

Former Chief Executive Officer of the VCAA Kylie White resigned within days of the cheat sheet scandal being exposed. Picture: Supplied

The junior staff member is no longer at the VCAA and questions are now being asked about whether senior staffers overseeing the process should lose their jobs too.

Another source said it would be “a bit rough if he was the only scalp”.

“The whole organisation is stuffed and won’t be fixed by getting rid of one young bureaucrat.”

Apart from VCAA CEO Kylie White, who resigned within days of the Herald Sun revelations on November 13 last year, many of the leaders who have overseen three years of embarrassing exam errors are still in place or have been promoted.

Former CEO VCAA Stephen Gniel has been promoted to the head of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority which is responsible for NAPLAN. Dr Blacher noted the exam error issues of 2022 and 2023 occurred under Mr Gniel.

The VCAA board has also been replaced.

In other changes, Jason Smallwood has left as VCAA executive director of curriculum and is now principal of Tarneit P-9 College.

Former Department of Education secretary Jenny Atta, who knew about the leaks within days and authorised the rewriting of exams, has been moved to health, retaining her $600,000 plus salary.

But the VCAA associate director of examinations Lauren Sayer is still in place, along with other executives such as Justin Seabury and Taylor Ashton.

Another source said: “You’d have to think their days are now numbered.”

Indeed, insiders expect wholesale change inside the VCAA, and even the reconstitution of a new body entirely, to follow Dr Blacher’s second report.

Dr Blacher has already flagged “examination development process at the executive level” will be fully examined in his second report into the exam fiasco.

A VCAA spokesman said the authority was “fully focused on delivery the 2025 VCE examinations and its other functions”.

Jess Wilson, opposition education spokeswoman, said the “scapegoating of a junior employee is just another example of Labor continuing to cover-up its latest VCE exam debacle”.

“After three years of compromised exams, the community has lost confidence in the VCAA and Labor’s ability to deliver fair and accurate VCE assessments,” she said.

Originally published as ‘Just trying to help’: Junior staffer to blame for VCE exam leak debacle