Last year a “root and branch” review of the authority led by Dr Yehudi Blacher found the VCAA lacked the “foundational structures, governance, processes, technology and capabilities that are commonplace in modern organisations”.

The Victorian Government accepted all 11 recommendations from the review, which included a reset of its leadership.

The review followed the widely publicised botching of VCE exams in 2024, where the VCAA published sample cover pages that contained hidden text in seemingly blank sections, which, when copied into another document, revealed a series of questions and answers identical or very similar to those in the final exams.

Investigations found this occurred in 65 of the 116 VCE examinations that year. The incident followed errors in the 2022 mathematics exams and in the 2023 mathematics and chemistry exams.

The Allan Government has said the funding addresses two key recommendations, namely making the VCAA’s budget ‘sustainable’ and upgrading technology so its operations are more reliable.

Minister for Education Ben Carroll said families, students and educators deserve to have total confidence in the VCE exams.

“Victorian students deserve a world-class education, and this investment makes sure the VCAA can deliver it,” he said.

“The review left no stone unturned in identifying what went wrong with the exams - and we're fixing them.”

“A stronger, more accountable VCAA means students, families and schools can have full confidence in VCE exams.”

In 2024, an education expert told EducationHQ that the VCE exam bungle that year had involved not just a technical breach, but had effectively violated the trust of teachers and school leaders in the system.

One Melbourne VCE teacher, who asked to remain anonymous, said many teachers felt “totally let down” by the VCAA.

“We toe the line with them all year, trying to consider what their assessors are looking for, and then they stuff us over in the end again – it’s disheartening for us and, of course, distressing for the students who have worked so hard to get to this point’,” they said.

The teacher said that amongst colleagues, trust was thin on the ground after two years of blunders and disruption.

“We’ll wait and see what happens next year, ‘frustration’ is putting it mildly.”

ACU’s Dr Steven Lewis said at the time that the authority’s ‘governance processes’ clearly appear to be of concern.

“So, how you’re overseeing the creation of tests, the supervision of and checking of things before they’re released and made public.

“And then equally how resourcing is being made available to the various people and organisations within the VCAA to enable them to do their job effectively,” Lewis said.

The budget’s education spend also includes:

  • $180 million to deliver 27 new and expanded kindergartens and childcare centres;
  • At least $420 million to build four new schools across the city's outer suburbs;
  • $26 million to delivery Rapid Child Safety review on childcare; and,
  • $16 million to continue the Glasses for Kids program.

The AEU Victorian Branch have slammed the budget, arguing it leaves public schools the lowest funded in Australia and fails to invest properly in Victorian TAFEs.

“The state government have left our schools and TAFEs in the same position as last year: undervalued and underfunded,” the union stated.

Branch president Justin Mullaly called into question Victoria’s ‘education state’ tagline.

“Victorians have every right today to ask themselves, on what grounds can the state government claim Victoria is the ‘education state’,” he said.

“Our teachers, principals, education support staff, and our students and their families cannot afford to wait any longer for full and fair funding for public schools. Victoria is already at the bottom of the pack.

“When will the Allan Labor Government fund public schools like other states and territories?”

The budget has put aside aside billions of dollars for contingencies that are yet to be allocated, including “decisions made but not announced”, with unallocated money including funding for the Thriving Kids program as well as teacher pay rises which are still locked in tense negotiations with the union.

Independent Schools Victoria (ISV) has welcomed the budget announcement that indexation will be applied to payroll tax and that the threshold will increase, saying it was a “constructive step forward following sustained engagement with the Victorian Government".

But ISV Chief Executive Rachel Holthouse argued that further reform was needed to address ongoing cost pressures bearing down on independent schools and families.

“The cost pressures on independent schools remain significant. Payroll tax is adding to those pressures and, in some cases, flowing through to fees making it harder for families to choose the education they want for their children,” Holthouse said.

“We should not be heading toward a system where families are priced out of the school of their choice because of ill-considered tax enforced on a not-for-profit sector.”