Auckland Grammar criticised over handling of exam fraud

11.00am

The New Zealand Qualifications Authority says it is concerned at how a case of examination fraud was handled by Auckland Grammar School.

In documents released under the Official Information Act, NZQA said Auckland Grammar's mishandling may have amounted to dishonesty and could even be seen as undermining the integrity of the assessment system itself.

It said the case was unprecedented and at one stage warned Auckland Grammar that it risked losing the rights to assess its students for qualifications.

The incident happened at the end of last year's examinations when a year 11 (fifth form) student at Auckland Grammar got a year 12 (sixth form) student to sit level one exams in biology, chemistry, maths, physics and science, National Radio reported today.

The school was alerted about one of the exams through an anonymous phone call on the day of an exam, and some initial questioning had been done.

But it was not until three weeks later that the boy involved and his parents had been called to a meeting. At that meeting the father said his son would be leaving school to go to work or on to tertiary education, and because of this the staff member dealing with the issue decided not to spend further time on the matter.

At the start of this year, the boy went to another school which became suspicious of his results. Under questioning he admitted that someone else had sat those exams for him and it was only at that point, three months later, that NZQA had been notified.

NZQA found it was clear there had been this case of impersonation and that the school had not followed correct procedures, National Radio said.

In a letter to the school, NCEA (National Certificate of Educational Achievement) implementation group manager Kate Colbert had said this failure meant the NZQA and new school had to spend much time and effort sorting the issue out.

More seriously, she said, this was a case of misconduct that had the potential to seriously jeopardise NZQA's ability to deal efficiently and effectively with the matter, and could even be seen as undermining the integrity of the assessment system.

"I think that the teacher at Auckland Grammar School made a very bad judgment. The school knew about the allegation of cheating and didn't report it to us. It is absolutely not acceptable," Ms Colbert told National Radio.

"This is unprecedented. As far as I'm aware it has never happened before."

In her letter to the school Ms Colbert had warned that NZQA might have to consider whether the school's action amounted to dishonesty and if that was the case, whether it should revoke the school's accreditation to assess students for qualifications.

In a letter to NZQA, Auckland Grammar had said the threat to revoke accreditation was inappropriate and amounted to an over-reaction.

The school had shown it was willing to co-operate, and headmaster John Morris had said he was very disappointed the school had fallen short of what he had called its own high standards.

He had said the mistake was an aberration in what had been an unblemished record of putting thousands of boys through exams. He had apologised and guaranteed there would be no repeats.

NZQA had found one teacher had made a very bad judgment, but had not dishonestly assisted the student, National Radio said, so the school avoided any unpleasant consequences.

Both the boys involved had lost the qualifications they gained last year.

- NZPA