MATSEC's Decision

This is MATSEC's decision about the Italian listening comprehension issues: (Quoted from the published document) 10. At this point, the chairperson of the SEC Italian examiners’ panel was consulted and reference was made to the guidelines on special consideration issued by the UK Joint Council for Qualifications, which regulates the procedures of the major GCSE and GCE awarding bodies. These guidelines stipulate that candidates are eligible for special consideration if there is “serious disturbance during an examination, particularly where recorded material is being used. Finally, it was decided to award Malta candidates a compensation of 5% on their performance, which is well above the 1% compensation given by the JCQ guidelines in circumstances of “noise during the examination which was more than momentary”. 11. Furthermore, in order to cover all possibilities, it was decided to offer a re-sit of the examination to candidates who felt that they were severely disadvantaged by the quality of the audio. This offer was extended to Gozo candidates for the sake of fairness. The original scores obtained by candidates who take this offer will be deleted from the record and replaced by their scores in the re-sit. The full document can be accessed by clicking here: https://www.um.edu.mt/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/313308/SECItalianLC_report.pdf