By Noel Towell and Caroline Schelle
The state curriculum authority is urging school principals to discourage families from appealing against results in this year’s VCE as the number of exams potentially affected by the leaked questions debacle reached 65 on Tuesday.
Education Minister Ben Carroll confirmed that there were nine more subjects – in addition to the 56 already uncovered – in which students might have gained early access to exam questions.
Australian history, chemistry, Chinese language, culture and society, general maths 1 and 2, Latin, physics, philosophy, and visual communication design were the additional subjects named on Tuesday.
Every one of the top 10 most popular VCE subjects has been affected.
List of compromised VCE subjects
- Aboriginal languages Victoria
- Accounting
- Ancient history
- Applied computing data analytics
- Applied computing software development
- Art creative practice
- Art making and exhibiting
- Australian history
- Australian politics
- Biology
- Business management
- Chemistry
- Chinese first language
- Chinese language, culture and society
- Chinese second language
- Classical studies
- Dance
- Drama
- English as an additional language
- Economics
- English
- Environmental science
- Food studies
- Foundation mathematics
- General mathematics 1
- General mathematics 2
- Geography
- Global politics
- Health and human development
- History revolutions
- Industry and enterprise
- Latin
- Legal studies
- Mathematical methods 1
- Mathematical methods 2
- Media
- Music composition
- Music contemporary performance
- Music inquiry
- Music repertoire performance
- Outdoor and environmental studies
- Philosophy
- Physical education
- Physics
- Product design and technology
- Psychology
- Religion and society
- Specialist mathematics 1
- Specialist mathematics 2
- Systems engineering
- Text and traditions
- Theatre studies
- VCE VET business
- VCE VET community services
- VCE VET engineering
- VCE VET equine studies
- VCE VET furnishing
- VCE VET health
- VCE VET hospitality
- VCE VET hospitality cookery
- VCE VET information and communications technology
- VCE VET integrated technologies
- VCE VET music sound production
- VCE VET sports and recreation
- Visual communication design
Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority acting chief executive Marcia Devlin held a briefing for principals on Tuesday, assuring them that no student had been marked down and asking the school leaders to advise parents that appeals were not necessary.
The minister earlier said results would be released as planned on Thursday morning, and would be “fair, accurate and reliable”, despite the publishing blunder that has marred this year’s exams.
Students sitting their VCE English exam at Bentleigh Secondary College.Credit: Joe Armao
Carroll said the exams had been marked and provided to the Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre on Friday to allow the centre to process university offers.
Devlin told the minister’s press conference that an expert panel had reviewed the results of 40 exams and found “anomalous results” for just 69 students in five exams: business management, legal studies, philosophy, visual communication design, and product design and technologies.
But no evidence was found that any of those students had acted in concert or accessed the questions, and none were marked down as a result of the review.
Devlin apologised to everyone affected and acknowledged the agency had lost trust as a result of the saga.
“While we can’t undo the error...I hope that on results day, we’ve been able to restore some of the trust that has been lost by ensuring the hard work of the students are reflected in results that are fair and accurate, with no student disadvantage by the VCAA error,” she said.
This year’s final exams for 76,000 Victorian students were thrown into turmoil last month when it emerged that questions in dozens of the tests had been inadvertently published online by the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority.
The authority’s chief executive, Kylie White, resigned within a week of the leaks emerging. Education Department secretary Jenny Atta later told a state parliamentary committee that the debacle appeared to have been caused by a desktop publishing error.
Victorian Liberals education spokesperson Jess Wilson renewed her call on Tuesday for an ombudsman’s inquiry into the matter, pointing out that Carroll had assured the public last month the problems identified were confined to 56 exam papers.
“Students still do not understand which questions have been impacted, how examinations will be marked and have no guarantee they will not be left at disadvantage,” Wilson said.
“Minister for Education Ben Carroll must today refer the 2024 VCE debacle to the Victorian ombudsman or resign.”
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