The entire board of Victoria’s Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) has been dismissed following a comprehensive review of the 2024 VCE exam scandal, which revealed significant failures in the agency's management. Deputy Premier and Education Minister Ben Carroll announced the overhaul on April 15, 2025, in response to a report that found sample cover pages containing real exam questions had been viewed online approximately 6,000 times before tens of thousands of students sat for their final exams last year.
The scandal arose when exam content was accidentally published weeks before the exams, allowing students to gain an unfair advantage. The review, led by independent reviewer Yehudi Blacher, concluded that the VCAA had inadequate oversight and planning, particularly during a chaotic two-day period when 100 staff members were mobilized to rewrite the leaked questions.
“It’s a big thing and it’s important to get it right, and unfortunately, the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority has not got it right on more than one occasion,” Carroll stated, emphasizing the importance of the VCE to the Victorian community. The government has accepted all eight recommendations from the review, which includes installing a new VCAA board and eliminating cover sheets from exams.
From next year, the VCAA will also implement backup exams and questions to be used in the event of a leak, ensuring that similar incidents do not occur in the future. The review’s findings indicated that the mistakes were not isolated incidents; rather, they were part of a pattern of mismanagement that included errors in mathematics and chemistry exams in previous years.
Blacher noted that the publishing error was traced back to a junior staff member using unauthorized software to create the cover pages. “It was a very junior officer who is no longer in the organization — who was only there on the short term — who tried to speed up the process because they were running behind,” he explained. This mistake allowed students to view obscured exam material by highlighting the area where text was blanked out.
In the wake of the scandal, Carroll has appointed Andrew Smith as the new chief executive of the VCAA, effective June 1. Smith, who has a background in education, will lead the interim board as they implement the recommendations from the review. Additionally, senior public servant Margaret Crawford has been brought in as an independent monitor to oversee the development of the 2025 exams.
The review also highlighted systemic shortfalls in governance and management within the VCAA, with Blacher emphasizing that the failures of the past three years revealed a lack of accountability and oversight. “Each of the failures of the past three years has specific explanations as to why they occurred. Taken together, however, they reveal systemic shortfalls in the quality of governance and some parts of the VCAA management,” he stated.
Despite the changes, some critics remain skeptical about the effectiveness of the review. Opposition Leader Brad Battin expressed concern that the government should have acted more swiftly to address the issues. “How can the government guarantee that they’re going to fix the system between now and the end of the year?” he asked.
Opposition education spokeswoman Jess Wilson also criticized the review, claiming it does not provide adequate assurances that past exam blunders will not recur. “This so-called review contains nothing to ensure the exam blunders of the past three years do not occur again,” she asserted.
As the VCAA prepares for the upcoming exam period, it is clear that the fallout from the 2024 scandal will have lasting implications for how exams are administered in Victoria. The government has committed to making significant changes to restore confidence in the examination process, which serves nearly 80,000 students each year.
In addition to the immediate changes, the second phase of the review will focus on examining the culture, structure, and operations of the VCAA to ensure that it can adequately perform its duties moving forward. This comprehensive approach aims to not only address the current issues but also to build a more resilient and accountable organization for the future.
As the education community awaits the implementation of these recommendations, the hope is that such measures will prevent any further disruptions to the vital VCE examination process, safeguarding the integrity of assessments for all students.
