Dr Steven Lewis from ACU says that while the bulk of media coverage to date has focused on how the most recent mishap has impacted on students, teachers and schools across the state have been deeply affected, too.

VCE teachers have seen these students through the last two years of exam preparation, and now they have been called on to manage the fall-out from the authority’s significant error, the senior research fellow points out.

“I think it’s a very, very appropriate time to acknowledge that this is putting a lot of undue stress and strain on teachers, who are doing their absolute best in a very bad circumstance and are really having to respond to something which is entirely outside of their control.”

This week the State Government revealed that some 56 out of 116 VCE exams were compromised by the breach, which saw specific questions and materials published online by mistake ahead of the exam period in “hidden” sample assessments.

This is the second consecutive chaos to enshroud the end-of-year exams, after multiple errors in last year’s papers promoted a review, chaired by Dr John Bennett AM, which urged six recommendations to strengthen the VCAA’s testing process.

The Government agreed to all six. In October it reported that the VCAA had implemented or was ‘on track’ to implement every single one.

“We were told that the problems were identified and resolved, and clearly that’s not the case,” Lewis says.

One Melbourne VCE teacher, who asked to remain anonymous, said many teachers now 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.”

The authority’s ‘governance processes’ clearly appear to be of concern, Dr Steven Lewis flags.

With so much emphasis placed on teachers and students to put in the leg work in the lead up, Lewis says it’s a real “slap in the face” that the organisation responsible for administering and overseeing the exams “doesn’t feel like they’ve done their homework”.

This is not to say that the authority’s recently departed CEO Kylie White is solely to blame for what’s transpired, the expert clarified.

The problem likely runs a bit deeper, he says.

“I think there’s probably a more systemic process issue and potentially an underfunding, under-resourcing, under-staffing issue, which is creating opportunities for such things to occur.

“But [White] was brought in on the back end of this first review and this error back in 2023. So, to have her stepping down, barely 12 months into the position…”

The authority’s ‘governance processes’ clearly appear to be of concern, Lewis adds.

“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 wants to make it known that his critique is in no way an attack on the authority or anyone who works within it.

Nevertheless, he argues that the Victorian public has a right to expect that their exam system is of high quality.

“Is this a case of there’s insufficient staff or there’s insufficient technical advice or there’s insufficient in-house knowledge about certain things?” he poses.

In the case of an error as significant as the one at hand, it pays to get communication with the public right from the outset, Lewis says.

Regrettably, the VCAA initially appeared to be “less than forthcoming” about the error’s scale of impact, he argues.

“A lot of the initial reporting by the Herald Sun was that there were just one or two things that are affected, and then [it was a] few more tests and a few more subjects.

“…it’s 56 exams now, that’s nearly half of all the exams.

“So when you’re approaching that one-in-two chances [situation] of being affected, and that’s affecting students directly, I think people have a right to question why that’s the case.”

Speaking in a general sense, Lewis says the public at large is for the most part “pretty reasonable”.

“It’s probably fair to say that often the [authority or organisation’s] response to the issue makes the issue much bigger than it needs to be…

“And if you say, ‘look, this thing happened, it was human error or it was outside of our control … We identified it, we acted on it quickly, we’ve minimised the harm, and this is how we’re going to make sure it doesn’t happen again,’ I think the average person you ask on the street would be pretty content with that as a logic…

The expert welcomes Education Minister Ben Carroll’s announcement that a ‘branch and root’ review will take place into what happened.

The Government will also install an independent monitor to oversee next year’s exams.

“Students deserve better. It is clear to me that some students have been let down as a result of these errors and that is completely unacceptable,” Carroll said.