UPDATE (15/04/25)
The Blacher report is on this page. His eight recommendations are:
1. Ensure clear, specific accountabilities that align to defined milestones in the examination development process.
2. Clearly document the examination development process end-to-end, identifying and managing key risks.
3. Create a more senior executive director role as a single point of accountability for end-to-end delivery of examinations.
4. Cease the creation of sample cover pages.
5. Reconstitute the VCAA Board to include additional capabilities in critical governance areas.
6. Strengthen the risk and project management capability of those responsible for the examination development process.
7. Conduct regular crisis planning at an executive level in conjunction with the VCAA Board.
8. Pilot the development of an examination repository for select subjects.
Maybe there is good detail in the body of the report, but to us this sounds like a lot of “who cares?”
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It is being reported everywhere that the new report on VCAA has landed. Coming after the 2024 exam leak screw-up, and after CEO Kylie White was thrown to the wolves resigned, Yehudi Blacher was assigned to lead the “root-and-branch” review of VCAA’s admin stuff. What does it mean? God only knows.
Education Minister Ben Carroll has stated that he has accepted all “eight recommendations” of the review, but it is not clear what all the recommendations are; if Blacher’s report is public, we have not been able to locate it. One reported recommendation is to stop publishing the exam cover pages, which seems a no-brainer: was there ever any purpose to this? It would also appear that, beginning in 2026, VCAA will prepare back-up exams, clearly a sensible move. Other recommendations have to do with “accountability and risk-management”, whatever that means.
The headline recommendation was that the entire VCAA Board be replaced, which has been done. VCAA has announced the members of the interim Board:
In line with [the Blacher] recommendations, the Government has reconstituted the VCAA board and instated an interim Board that will oversee the VCAA.
The interim Board includes Tony Bates, Acting Secretary of the Department of Education, Professor Elizabeth Labone, CEO of the Victorian Catholic Education Authority, Rachel Holthouse, CEO of Independent Schools Victoria and Jane Brockington, an independent member who is a risk and audit specialist.
Semi-independently, Ben Carroll announced that the new permanent VCAA CEO will be Andrew Smith.
We know nothing of any of these people, and we have no idea how the new team will do better, or worse. We will just sound one quick note of concern about Blacher’s review.
There have always been (at least) two independent sources of VCAA nonsense: bureaucratic-administrative, and mathematical competence. The latter source, including the monumentally stupid Study Design, which is the stupid beating heart of it all, has been decades in the making. The two issues created a perfect storm in 2022, when VCAA was too far up its own ass to recognise and/or admit the mathematical screw-ups, but nonetheless the issues are separate. The headline screw-ups in 2023 and 2024, and the primary concern of the Blacher review, was the admin stuff (even if 2023 had no shortage of mathematical nonsense and 2024 still was not totally free of it.) That is fine, but the two issues should not be conflated, and they always are.
The Age report notes,
In the review, Blacher wrote that the VCE scandal, coupled with mishaps in 2022 and 2023, where mistakes were printed and some students were given wrong exams, revealed sustained mismanagement.
Yeah, sort of, and we don’t really know what Blacher wrote or intended, but this sounds very off-key. The “mishaps” in 2022 were not, at least initially or primarily, anything to do with mismanagement: they had to do with mathematical nitwits being in charge of the writing and the vetting of the exams.
This is not to denigrate the importance or value of Blacher’s review. But VCAA has worked hard on the back of the Bennett Review to address the mathematical issues. It would a very big step backward if that important work in progress were to be derailed by other concerns.
Review seems fairly vanilla-standard approach of bureaucratising to buggery in response to a crisis. Some interesting reading on what went wrong-reflective of a not particularly well functioning bureaucracy. Whether that changes will depend a lot on the CEO-it won’t be an easy task. And particularly what resourcing is given to it. Minister has strong strong incentive to get it right as if there’s another stuff up his name will clearly be associated with it.
On a technical point, it is mismanagement because good management includes ensuring that the appropriate people with the appropriate expertise are doing the job.
You mean the maths screw-up is, in the end, mismanagement? Yes, I know, and I had thought to flesh that out. But for the purposes of Blacher, I’ll bet the maths is an entirely separate and non-existent category.
I’d be amazed if Blacher wrote anything pointing towards addressing the problem that VCAA has no clue what maths is, and no clue who does know what maths is. Kylie had a clue (of the second, which suffices), but I’m not convinced the current VCAA leadership does.
Blacher wouldn’t even have thought of maths as relevant. He’s a generalist – a Public service executive hack.
Given that the minister, who hopes to take over from Jacinta Allen, will lose considerable prestige if there are any more VCAA issues, it’s likely that exams will be successful at least until November 2026. presumably there will be reasonable resources for the task, albeit with a very risk averse approach.
It’s hard to convey just how insular the public service is these days. It’s pretty hermetically sealed from the sector it’s supposed to be responsible for, let alone university engagement, which is practically non-existent. And if there were going to be any university engagement, it would be with the education faculty. But I suspect there’s very little of even that.
In the long run, I’m afraid VCAA is likely to revert to the mean, which is a pretty crappy public service these days.
Well, my concern is not VCAA generally but mathematics. There is an “in” now, because mathematicians have a seat at the table (and would have more seats if Unimelb weren’t such elitist tossers). But the point is to not lose sight of the necessary reforms. Blacher seems to have no eye for that, presumably for the reasons you give, but one can still try to use and/or defend against Blacher.
Absolutely agree Marty. But I just don’t think anything beyond getting the exams done without errors or criticism appearing before the next election will be any sort of priority. Keeping up the focus that you are doing gives the best chance of the maths being embedded at least until then and then hopefully it becomes just the way things are done. I have no idea on how to fix the study designs-but keeping up the pressure and developing allies is the best way to go.
Sure. I understand priorities. But as long as VCAA employs fruitcakes, (a) they will be screwing things up, and (b) the curriculum will not be fixed. I will be bashing (a) as a means of tackling (b).
I was patient while Kylie was in charge. I’ve had enough.
I am surprised to learn that VCAA didn’t have back-up exam papers in place before. It seems like common sense to me having back-ups for such high-stakes exams.
It is obviously desirable. But given VCAA has not been competent to put one sensible mathematics exam together, it seems a tall order to expect two.
If you read the report, it gives a pretty clear example of an organisation in chaos. They were running behind deadlines and all over the place. This is not to blame individuals, who are doing the best they could under very difficult circumstances. It would appear though barely managing one set of exams, let alone a backup set.
Submissions for Stage 2 of the review into the VCAA are open:
https://vcaareview.kordamentha.com/
Thanks, John. I’ll put up a post plugging it after Easter.
> Separate to these processes, the VCAA conducted a review of all questions to determine if there were any inaccuracies or ambiguities which could have unfairly impacted students. This process identified 20 questions across 16 examinations which contained such issues. The majority of these questions were invalidated (all students awarded full marks) while the remaining accepted multiple potential answers.
I haven’t been keeping up with this blog, so I’m not sure if it’s already public knowledge, but it sure is disappointing that 16 questions were invalidated from the vce exams (at the same time, VCAA should be commended for invalidating those questions instead of having Deloitte cover them up)
EDIT: I take that back, VCAA’s mistakes were definitely understandable given the circumstances, although this does show that students were indeed impacted by this ridiculous breach
Well spotted, Jay, and I’m not sure you should take it back.
The leak was a mess, and one can argue, once the leak had occurred and was discovered, what VCAA should have said and done, and when. They tried really hard to fix an unfixable situation, which doesn’t excuse them of course. VCAA were to blame. One can still recognise that while noting that some of SDTJ O’Brien’s reporting was reprehensible.
But the quote you lifted about the 2024 exams (p 22), and a very similar quote about the 2023 exams (p 12), both seemingly to do with *all* exam questions, are almost certainly nonsense.
I compiled my lists of flawed exam questions, for 2023 and 2024. Presumably not all the flaws “could have unfairly impacted students”, although the test is rather meaningless. But there is zero doubt that in 2023 and 2024, and 2022 and 2021 and 2020 and …, there were screwed questions that VCAA did nothing to unscrew.
One is tempted to say that VCAA just lies every year. And probably they do. But, much more, I think they really are just that stupid.
For your information:
VCAA also included the chief assessors video briefing on each math exam last year.
They can be accessed from
https://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/assessment/vce/examination-specifications-past-examinations-and-examination-reports/specialist-mathematics
and the relevant other subpages
Huh. Thank you. I wonder when that appeared. I will post and look when I can.