Hey everyone! The independent review into last year's VCE exam errors recently finished and they've released their recommendations and a full report. We're optimistic that VCE students from this year onwards can have more confidence that we won't be as impacted by exam errors as last year's year 12s were.

While most of the demands relating to the VCAA's immediate response to last year's exams were unsuccessful the review and the education minister Ben Carroll's response are positive signs for the rest of the demands you signed onto.

• Commit to a comprehensive and transparent independent review of the entire VCE exam process, including the writing, administering and marking of exams. Release the terms of reference and a full report on the review.

The independent review covered all aspects and the full report is available here. We're a bit disappointed that the review only seems to cover a few subjects but the recommendations can be applied to every subject and we call on the VCAA to implement them for all exams.

• Commit to overhauling the VCE exam process based on this review, which must include subject matter experts fully involved in writing and vetting each exam (eg professional mathematicians for VCE maths exams).

The review gave detailed recommendations to improve the writing and reviewing of exams and introduce a minimum number of qualified subject matter experts in exam development panels. Ben Carroll has committed the VCAA to implement every single recommendation and implement as many as possible before the 2024 examination period.

• For future exams, commit to releasing unedited exam papers within a week of students sitting the exam, all marking schemes with full solutions by results release of the same year, and all exam reports by February of the following year.

The review's recommendations include

"i. Publish the VCE Mathematics examination paper on the VCAA website within 5 days of a paper being sat.
ii. Publish the final version of the Marking Guide used to assess students’ performance on the VCAA website within 5 days of the end of the marking of each Mathematics examination.
iii. Publish the report prepared by the Chief Assessor on the VCAA website before the end of January the following year."

These recommendations are all better than even our petition requested. It shows that our proposals were common sense and feasible and we have a right to expect that the VCAA is transparent just like other states like NSW. We're most excited about the recommendation to release the marking schemes which we don't think the VCAA has ever done before.

• Commit to releasing a report on each yearly exam cycle, outlining problems that occurred that year including exam errors, and how these were addressed and measures that will be implemented to prevent them from occurring again. All exam reports should also address the problems affecting that subject that year.

The review recommends "Provide a report to the VCAA Board each year regarding the performance of the annual examination series, including reporting any issues that arose, explaining how they were managed and outlining the steps to be taken to reduce the likelihood of such issues occurring in the future." We also call on the VCAA to release this report to the public.

Thank you to all of you who signed this petition, the media who put a spotlight on the VCAA's mistakes and raised the petition's suggestions, the shadow education minister Jess Wilson who called on Ben Carroll to implement our proposals in Parliament, and everyone who organised and advocated for integrity in the VCAA and VCE exams. With your help, we've shown that it's possible to get change in the VCAA and we've got a right to expect if there are exams they have to be as error-free as possible.

Love,

High Schools Activate