The entire Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) board has been axed following years of VCE mishaps.
Deputy Premier and Education Minister Ben Carroll today announced an overhaul of the curriculum authority in the wake of last year’s VCE exam bungle, where sample exam content was released weeks before students sat for the tests.
An independent report found sample cover pages containing exam content had been viewed about 6000 times across 65 different subjects ahead of last year’s VCE exams.
“It’s a big thing and it’s important to get it right and unfortunately the Victorian Curriculum And Assessment Authority has not got it right on more than one occasion,” Carroll said.
“The status quo of the VCAA will no longer cut it.”
The government has agreed to implement all eight recommendations suggested by the independent review, which found poor crisis management and planning.
“There wasn’t sufficient recognition from the top down, from the board down about how important the VCE is to the Victorian community,” review chairman Dr Yehudi Blacher said.
The government has admitted there’s not enough time to implement all the changes ahead of this year’s exams, but from next year the VCAA will also write back-up exams and questions to be used in the case of a leak.
Cover pages will no longer be used in exams.elea
Today’s report was only the first of of the “root and branch” review.
The spotlight is now on the organisation’s culture, structure and operations for the second part of the review.
It should be handed down later this year.
Despite accepting “full responsibility” for the mishap, Carroll will keep his job as education minister.
The opposition says the government should have acted earlier to prevent the failures.
“They should have had this done, it had been happening for three years,” Opposition Leader Brad Battin said.
“It’s about time the Labor government realised they are responsible for things that are happening in the state.
“They can’t keep sacking the people that they appoint to fix the problems.”
In 2023, Carroll conducted an independent review into VCAA after mistakes were found in maths and chemistry exams.
The year before, mistakes also emerged in mathematics exams.
