Marked NCEA papers get sent to wrong candidate

Zac Longman hopes whoever got his papers didn't bin them. Photo / Dean Purcell

An Auckland teenager was mistakenly sent the wrong person's marked papers in the mail.

Zac Longman, 16, knew he had already achieved enough credits to pass NCEA Level 1 but was keen to see exactly how he'd done by having a look at the marked test papers.

Instead of getting his papers back he got another student's who had sat different subjects at a higher level.

"I just looked at it and could see the handwriting wasn't mine.

"Then I saw the subjects were like Shakespeare and stuff I hadn't even studied, and it was NCEA Level 3."

The Avondale College student was looking forward to getting his papers back but isn't too hopeful.

"It will depend on whoever got them sending them back to NZQA [New Zealand Qualifications Authority] and not just throwing them in the bin."

He was surprised the qualifications authority "couldn't get the right papers out to the right person", although his privacy was intact because student names aren't on the papers.

Students are instead identified by an individual code.

NZQA deputy chief executive Bali Haque said with 1.8 million standards there was always a chance of errors occurring.

"Some books get mis-sorted."

Mr Haque said NZQA was aware that some students had been sent the wrong papers and was looking into the matter.