End-of-school exams in one state will be given a major overhaul after an embarrassing bungle that has been blamed on a junior employee.
The board of Victoria's exam authority has been sacked and a new chief executive appointed just six months out from 2025 exams, but students have been told final VCE assessments will continue as planned.
A mistake in the previous year's papers allowed pupils to access questions in advance from instructional cover sheets at the front of online booklets, however from now on the sheets will no longer be included in tests.
Some 65 exams were affected by the 2024 publishing issue, with a major government-instigated review finding the board in charge had inadequate oversight into how the papers were developed.
The Victorian government has accepted all recommendations from the first stage of the probe, including getting rid of cover sheets, changing the board, creating a senior role charged with accountability over exams and having back up exams ready.
The second part of the review will examine the culture within the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority.
"We're doing everything we can to make sure this never occurs again for those 80,000 students and their parents," Victorian Education Minister Ben Carroll told reporters in Melbourne on Tuesday.
"I take full responsibility, that is why I have apologised. That's why I also put in place a root and branch review."
Independent reviewer Yehudi Blacher said the publishing error happened due to one person using "Adobe-type software" incorrectly and did not involve artificial intelligence.
"It was a very junior officer who is no longer in the organisation - who was only there on the short term - who tried to speed up the process because they were running behind," Mr Blacher said.
"(He) applied the software that didn't apply properly and so it was a minor error with major implications."
It came after multiple errors appeared in general maths and chemistry exams in 2023, six students received the incorrect Chinese language exam and five questions in the 2022 maths exams contained errors.
Mr Blacher said no one could guarantee the 2025 exams would be without issue as humans were involved in the development of the tests.
However, he suggested similar errors to 2024 would be unlikely.
"The changes of it occurring in the same way with all the various oversights and rigour that's in place, I would say they have been diminished enormously," he said.
Senior figures from public, Catholic and independent education are among new appointees to the board, while new chief executive Andrew Smith will start in the role from June.
Opposition education spokeswoman Jess Wilson said students deserved better than the existing review and accused Mr Carroll of setting up the probe to avoid accountability.
"This so-called review contains nothing to ensure the exam blunders of the past three years do not occur again," she said.
"Students sitting the 2025 VCE exams should be rightly concerned that minister Carroll is more concerned about protecting his job than ensuring the integrity of their exams."
