WITH COMMENDABLE speed, the State Examinations Commission (SEC) has delivered a comprehensive report on the breach of security in this year’s Leaving Cert English Paper 2 exam.
The report, published yesterday, confirms that human error rather than any systemic weakness was responsible for the leak. A superintendent in a Drogheda school briefly distributed English Paper 2 – instead of Paper 1 – and compounded his error by failing to notify the SEC immediately.
The report confirms that the SEC was not alerted to the security breach until shortly before 4pm on the day in question. The report says this late notice left the SEC with little practical option but to postpone the exam – due to take place the following morning – and reschedule it for Saturday, June 5th.
The SEC says this decision was made on the basis of advice from An Post that it could not guarantee distribution to all schools. While this is fair enough, could the whole disruptive business of rescheduling the exams not have been avoided if all contingency papers were readily available in all schools?
That said, this is an impressive report which meticulously tracks not only the origin of the security breach but also the decision-making process of the SEC in response to it.
One of the key recommendations is better training for superintendents, although the existing training process, as detailed in the report, already appears exhaustive and professional. Similarly, procedures are already in place to ensure the correct exam paper is distributed to students, including colour-coded and clearly labelled examination paper packets. The SEC found that the superintendent in question failed to carry out these procedures correctly.
The report recommends that superintendents must contact the commission immediately if there is any risk that the integrity of an exam may have been compromised. But, in virtually all cases, superintendents would do this without being prompted; it is a core part of their responsibility.
This year’s error is the first major embarrassment for the SEC since its establishment in 2003. It enjoys a strong reputation for its professional management of the exams, a daunting logistical task. But as the Minister for Education acknowledged yesterday, the exams process is heavily dependent on human input and, as such, the risk of error can never be entirely eliminated.