It is not a big shock that VCAA CEO, Kylie White, has resigned. I have made clear my feelings, here and here. Maybe this was a necessary move but that doesn’t make it a good move, and it isn’t.
Most probably Gniel – very hard to fix a sinking ship without a major mandate. Could be the Minister – is he telling the truth? Though I do wonder (as you do) why she didn’t move heaven and earth to make wholesale changes to exams, having discovered the leaks and conscious of the history and extreme political sensitivity.
Essentially when you have a very weak organisation and having set the conditions for the fiasco, it’s the person currently at the top who gets the blame, often not those who created the mess. (you’re right – male/female was probably not relevant)
OK sure. I’m not sure that it was Gniel who set the conditions. VCAA has been “very weak” for decades. But I can’t see that he did anything to improve it.
Clarification needed. Were such pages not published in previous years?
Is it the back of front page that can be “reconstructed”?
If, then how it was discovered just now?
Is there any conspiracy theory applicable?
A bit far reaching is the inside job…
Hi Banacek. Front pages of the exams have always been published, which always seemed to me pointless and absurd. I guess the second pages, but blanked out, were always part of that as well. In this case, the “blanking” was pseudo-blanking. Others can explain better.
I think the suggestion is that the decision to change the exam font somehow led to the confusion. God knows how. It is such an astonishing mistake to make, I think people are contemplating conspiracy. But of course it was simply a screw-up.
The mistake was likely covering the text with a white image, instead of deleting it. Adobe products are frustratingly hard to use, and I can fully empathise with wanting to just cover it with a blank image, instead of trying to figure out how to delete all the text boxes.
It’s not a particularly strange mistake, in fact it’s extremely similar to the common occurrence where a company/government uses black images to redact text in a report.
My guess is that the person who regularly uploads cover sheets was aware of this issue (it’s reasonably common knowledge in technical circles) but the last-minute font change was made while they were away. I’m guessing that someone else assumed redacting text was easier than it is and volunteered to do it. If that happened then I hold no grudges against that person, just as I’d hold no grudges against a janitor who unwittingly used a magnet to hold down a pile of floppy disks (for those who don’t know, magnets corrupt data on floppy disks and HDDs). Ultimately the biggest mistake was that VCAA’s policies likely allowed PDFs to be redacted and uploaded by an untrained staff member. Having weak cybersecurity policies is a pretty serious mistake, but it’s a mistake nonetheless and doesn’t indicate any malicious behaviour
(And yes, I’m gonna eat my previous words and say that it’s highly unlikely that VCAA changed the text color to white, contrary to every rumour on r/vce)
And to answer Banacek Spaces’ question, the GAT cover sheet was not affected by this blunder, and has not been modified since May. As such, it is unlikely that previous years’ cover sheets were affected
I don’t really understand what’s necessary about this kind of “buck stops” resignation. If the organisation would be better with her staying on than not, what good does it do? Is the average Herald Sun reader’s faith and esteem in the VCAA restored?
The Gods demand a sacrifice. As for whether the average Herald Sun reader’s faith and esteem in the VCAA is restored, the answer is probably, and foolishly, yes.
I’ve made it clear that I wanted Kylie to stay, and that is terrible that she was forced to leave. And I’m not arguing that the buck stopping with Kylie meant that she had to go. I’m just not surprised that the buck stopping with Kylie would mean everybody else would conclude she had to go.
I’m not sure “the average Herald Sun reader’s opinion of VCAA” is a concept that existed two weeks ago, or one that will continue to exist in two weeks time. But maybe! This sort of political theatre just seems of a different time to me.
Agree that it isn’t all that surprising, just a bit sad. It is a bit shocking to me that the axe hasn’t fallen closer to exam administration. Imagine being the poor idiot who clicked “Change font colour > White” right now. Must be feeling pretty awful!
A woman takes the blame for a man’s mistakes – what’s new?
Which man? What mistakes?
Most probably Gniel – very hard to fix a sinking ship without a major mandate. Could be the Minister – is he telling the truth? Though I do wonder (as you do) why she didn’t move heaven and earth to make wholesale changes to exams, having discovered the leaks and conscious of the history and extreme political sensitivity.
My sense is that heaven and earth *was* moved, but there was simply too little time to move that much heaven and that much earth.
I’m still not sure what mistakes Gniel made, other than being utterly useless.
Essentially when you have a very weak organisation and having set the conditions for the fiasco, it’s the person currently at the top who gets the blame, often not those who created the mess. (you’re right – male/female was probably not relevant)
OK sure. I’m not sure that it was Gniel who set the conditions. VCAA has been “very weak” for decades. But I can’t see that he did anything to improve it.
Clarification needed. Were such pages not published in previous years?
Is it the back of front page that can be “reconstructed”?
If, then how it was discovered just now?
Is there any conspiracy theory applicable?
A bit far reaching is the inside job…
Hi Banacek. Front pages of the exams have always been published, which always seemed to me pointless and absurd. I guess the second pages, but blanked out, were always part of that as well. In this case, the “blanking” was pseudo-blanking. Others can explain better.
I think the suggestion is that the decision to change the exam font somehow led to the confusion. God knows how. It is such an astonishing mistake to make, I think people are contemplating conspiracy. But of course it was simply a screw-up.
The mistake was likely covering the text with a white image, instead of deleting it. Adobe products are frustratingly hard to use, and I can fully empathise with wanting to just cover it with a blank image, instead of trying to figure out how to delete all the text boxes.
It’s not a particularly strange mistake, in fact it’s extremely similar to the common occurrence where a company/government uses black images to redact text in a report.
My guess is that the person who regularly uploads cover sheets was aware of this issue (it’s reasonably common knowledge in technical circles) but the last-minute font change was made while they were away. I’m guessing that someone else assumed redacting text was easier than it is and volunteered to do it. If that happened then I hold no grudges against that person, just as I’d hold no grudges against a janitor who unwittingly used a magnet to hold down a pile of floppy disks (for those who don’t know, magnets corrupt data on floppy disks and HDDs). Ultimately the biggest mistake was that VCAA’s policies likely allowed PDFs to be redacted and uploaded by an untrained staff member. Having weak cybersecurity policies is a pretty serious mistake, but it’s a mistake nonetheless and doesn’t indicate any malicious behaviour
(And yes, I’m gonna eat my previous words and say that it’s highly unlikely that VCAA changed the text color to white, contrary to every rumour on r/vce)
And to answer Banacek Spaces’ question, the GAT cover sheet was not affected by this blunder, and has not been modified since May. As such, it is unlikely that previous years’ cover sheets were affected
I don’t really understand what’s necessary about this kind of “buck stops” resignation. If the organisation would be better with her staying on than not, what good does it do? Is the average Herald Sun reader’s faith and esteem in the VCAA restored?
The Gods demand a sacrifice. As for whether the average Herald Sun reader’s faith and esteem in the VCAA is restored, the answer is probably, and foolishly, yes.
I’ve made it clear that I wanted Kylie to stay, and that is terrible that she was forced to leave. And I’m not arguing that the buck stopping with Kylie meant that she had to go. I’m just not surprised that the buck stopping with Kylie would mean everybody else would conclude she had to go.
I’m not sure “the average Herald Sun reader’s opinion of VCAA” is a concept that existed two weeks ago, or one that will continue to exist in two weeks time. But maybe! This sort of political theatre just seems of a different time to me.
Agree that it isn’t all that surprising, just a bit sad. It is a bit shocking to me that the axe hasn’t fallen closer to exam administration. Imagine being the poor idiot who clicked “Change font colour > White” right now. Must be feeling pretty awful!
Would schools in Australia be better served by have a national curriculum, one Department of Education, and one minister?
No.
Make it none. Ministry knows better than you? Or me? No way. But some schools may benefit from basic syllabus to follow.
Don’t be ridiculous.