A number of Stawell Secondary students were directly affected by a technical glitch which sent out ATAR results five days earlier than expected, principal Nick Lynch confirmed.
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Mr Lynch said it was an unfortunate situation and left the school scrambling to support the students involved.
“I can confirm that a number of students at Stawell Secondary have been affected by the early results,” he said.
“The whole situation has been an unfortunate episode for the students and the school has been supporting them as best we can.
“It would also be true that all other area schools have also experienced the same scenario.”
Mr Lynch said how the situation had escalated was unnecessary and the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority should consider releasing the results earlier for future years.
“Clearly the results were available five days earlier than the scheduled date so VCAA must consider this as it will give schools more opportunities to support their students with career pathways,” he said.
Mr Lynch also said it was time to rethink how the ATAR score was being represented.
“It is incredible this situation has caused so much drama and it is time to think about what we are doing to our kids when we make ATARS so critically important and stressful,” he said.
“We need to rethink how we talk about results because they do not define your life.”
Education minister James Merlino apologised for the error, saying the early results reached around 2000 students.
“The results were sent out through a text message alert and they were the correct results,” he said.
“This is obviously a serious error that has been made and I can understand that students would be confused, angry and disappointed with what occurred,” he said.
Mr Merlino assured parents, students and schools a thorough and independent investigation would be conducted to find out what went wrong.
“This is completely unacceptable and I want the investigation done as soon as possible,” he said.