Victoria’s Education Minister has apologised to Year 12 students and vowed to “get to the bottom” of how two errors appeared on a VCE exam paper.
Ben Carroll, who is also the Deputy Premier, told reporters it was “unacceptable” the mistakes were included in the general maths test completed on Monday.
He assured students their marks would not be impacted by the errors which occurred despite a “thorough vetting process”.
Mr Carroll said he has since instructed the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority to investigate how the testing blunder occurred.
“First and foremost, we know how stressful doing any exam is for our Year 12s and the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority and myself as minister unreservedly apologise to the students and their families for what occurred,” he said on Tuesday.
“It is unacceptable given the checking and the vetting process that there were two errors. It shouldn’t have happened.
“I’ve spoken with the CEO of the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority this morning and asked for a thorough investigation into how this occurred.
“I want to reassure students and their families that they will not be impacted by this error. It will have no bearing on their marks.”
One of the mistakes was the inclusion of an extra ‘of’ in a preamble to part of one question which read: “The maximum decrease in time of any of activity is two days”.
That mistake was identified prior to the exam being held but it was decided there was not enough time to reprint the paper.
Students were told to cross out the extra ‘of’ to avoid being confused when reading the question in full. The second mistake was not picked up until after the exam was held.
“One error was picked up before the mathematics exam was undertaken but it was deemed too late to do the reprinting of that exam,” Mr Carroll said.
“Then there was a second error that occurred in a matrix that’s part of the exam. Students were instructed on the day to very clearly amend their sheet… but the second error wasn’t picked up until after the exam.”
Mr Carroll said it is believed the errors on the general maths paper were an isolated incident, with no other exams containing mistakes.
He added the government will “strengthen the integrity of the process and get to the bottom of how this occurred, given it did go through a thorough vetting process”.
(Sky News)
