Failure to pass on exam cheating info an indiscretion, says head

4.00pm

Auckland Grammar School headmaster John Morris considers his staff's failure to pass on information about possible exam cheating was an indiscretion and procedural error.

Documents released under the Official Information Act show a sixth form student at the prestigious Auckland school sat four National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) level 1 papers for a fifth form student last year.

The school received an anonymous phone call during the exams last November alleging the impersonation. On December 8, someone from the school spoke to the fifth form boy involved and his father about the incident but did not pass the information on to the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA).

The incident came to light in February this year after the fifth former admitted to his new school that the only exam he had sat was geography. He said he did not know who sat the other exams -- biology, chemistry, maths and science.

In May the six form student who did sit the exams told Auckland Grammar he did it as a favour to a friend, and was adamant no money had been involved, the school said.

A February 13 email from Auckland Grammar to NZQA said a student had been named in an anonymous call on November 24 alleging impersonation.

The author of the email said he had wanted to get all facts before pursuing the matter. That was possibly why a report had not been sent to NZQA.

The named student had not shown up when asked to by the author of the email . His parents had been contacted at work, and an appointment had been made to meet them on January 8.

At the meeting the father of the student said he had been aware his son was asleep when a science exam was sat.

Asked to explain how his paper was handed in and who had sat it for him, the student had shrugged his shoulders and said he did not know.

The father had said his son would be leaving school to either go to work or to a tertiary institution.

"Because of this I decided not to waste any further time on the matter," the author of the email said.

Mr Morris told NZPA today he had not been aware of the matter until he returned to school this year and found out from NZQA.

The person who wrote the February 13 email had found the father and the boy totally unco-operative.

"All we'd had prior to that was an anonymous phone call (that) this had happened. We had no proof whatsoever," Mr Morris said.

"We accept we should've reported this at that time to NZQA. We didn't do that and we didn't act according to our own high expectations," he said.

"Certainly it wasn't an attempt to sweep it under the table."

"I've certainly had a chat with the person involved (author of the email)... and we've accepted that was an indiscretion and a procedural error that should not have occurred.

"This shouldn't have happened but it is one indiscretion over many, many years of running NZQA exams. We have more students sitting exams at this school than any other school in the country," he said.

He did not accept comments from NZQA group manager Kate Colbert that Auckland Grammar's conduct could be seen as undermining the integrity of the assessment system.

"That was standard letter format that they had and I don't accept that at all."

In a letter to Mr Morris, Ms Colbert also said the school's failure to take the required action had the potential to seriously jeopardise NZQA's ability to deal efficiently and effectively with the matter.

NZQA had needed to consider whether the school's failure to notify it of the impersonation might amount to dishonestly assisting a student.

If it were, action NZQA could have taken included revoking the school's accreditation to assess its students for qualifications.

Ms Colbert told NZPA today that NZQA did not believe the teacher had been dishonest.

"We believe the teacher made a bad error of judgment, and we have a personal assurance from Mr Morris that it will never happen again," she said.

NZQA had withdrawn the results from last year's qualifications from both of the students involved.

"This is unprecedented really, that a teacher wouldn't let us know about a suspicion of a misconduct."

NZQA was "very confident" the incident was "most unusual", Ms Colbert said.

"We have never seen anything like it before that I'm aware of and each year we get about 36 cases of misconduct that we investigate."

- NZPA