Students were left in tears after they opened up their A-Level Shakespeare exam to find four crucial pages missing.
Teachers thought for one horrifying moment that they had spent two years teaching pupils the wrong course after the exam chief blunder.
Four pages were missing from the exam leaving some students in tears on Tuesday morning.
The A-Level pupils were expecting tests on Othello, The Tempest and Much Ado about Nothing after they spent two years revising William Shakespeare.
But when they opened their English language and literature exam the key questions on the famous bard had vanished.
It led to a moment of horror for teachers who were terrified they had ruined the students’ exams.
And it wasn't just the English students who were affected, maths students reported that their tests were so difficult to interpret that it made taking the exam nearly impossible.
But the mistake fell onto the shoulders of exam chiefs at the Welsh Joint Education Committee who later realised that they had left out the four important pages.
The Association of School and College Leaders said that the candidates had been “let down” and that the WJEC should have made sure the first exam papers after Covid disruption, were correct.
In a letter to school exam officers, the WJEC has since apologised and said it would take necessary action to ensure candidates were not disadvantaged by their blunder.
However, they have delayed any investigation into the mistakes until after results day in August when they claim they will take “appropriate” action.
The parents of the 730 candidates who had entered the exams said the error had knocked the pupils’ confidence and left them worried about how it would affect their results.
It also comes as another blow for students who only just made it through two years of education severely disrupted by Covid.
This summer saw exams held for the first time in three years after teacher-assessed grades were given during the pandemic.
Some parents took to social media in the aftermath of the exam chaos to talk about the effect it had had on their children, with some saying their kids have been left in tears.
Eithne Hughes, Director of ASCL Cymru, said: “There were inevitably going to be some teething problems around exams this summer given they have not taken place for the last two years due to the pandemic but we are astounded at the lack of quality assurance and quality control that contributed to students sitting Tuesday’s English Language & Literature A2 Unit 3 exam being handed papers that were missing four critical pages.
“Learners who have been diligently studying and revising Shakespeare and expecting questions on Othello will have been thrown into a state of panic by the total absence of the play from the paper, whilst those studying both Much Ado About Nothing and The Tempest were missing half of the questions they were anticipating.
“A-level mathematics students, meanwhile, have reported that some of the questions on their paper were so difficult to interpret that they were virtually inaccessible.
“Students had been reassured in the build-up to exams that there would be more generous marking of exam papers to account for the disruption to their learning caused by the pandemic but may have lost faith in a system that creates such problems for them at an extremely stressful time.
“We note that WJEC has apologised to the affected learners but this does little to address the emotional upset and distress caused by errors that simply should not have happened.”
A spokesperson for WJEC said: "WJEC would like to apologise for the question paper collation error that impacted some students in one section of our A level English Language and Literature paper.
'Although we produce a significant number of examination questions each year, this is a rare occurrence, and we are taking the matter very seriously.
'We would like to reassure students that we have robust procedures in place to ensure they are not disadvantaged and that they are treated fairly. All examination answers will be considered carefully during the marking and grading process to ensure all students are provided with a fair qualification result.
'This is our immediate priority, and once results have been issued in August, we will look carefully at the reasons for the error that occurred and take action as appropriate."
The WJEC also sent an email to exams officers which reportedly read: "We want to reassure all centres and candidates that we have standard processes in place to account for such issues and to ensure that no candidate is disadvantaged.
"We will be contacting all centres to ascertain any impact this has had on candidates taking this morning's examination.
"Once we have gathered this information we will be able to advise you on the remedial actions we will put in place, including whether centres should apply for special consideration.
"Once again we would like to apologise for this error. This is a very rare occurrence and we are taking the matter very seriously. Our teams will be working at pace to investigate this issue."
