Behaviour of teacher who leaked exam question ‘incomprehensible’ says minister (updated)

The education ministry said on Tuesday it will find an alternative solution for the 250 students who failed to take the Modern Greek exam on Monday after the initial exam was cancelled when one topic was leaked by the “unacceptable” behaviour of one teacher.

Meanwhile, it emerged that information about the possible leak was available before the day of the exam.

Education Minister Prodromos Prodromou said on Tuesday it was “unacceptable and incomprehensible” that a private school teacher decided to leak the topics of the first twice-yearly exam to final year students.

“There cannot be no consequences,” Prodromou told Ant1.

He confirmed reports that the ministry has sought the input of the legal service on how to handle the case.

The private school where the teacher is employed is also conducting its own investigation, Prodromou said. Officials are trying to determine whether the specific female teacher had a role in the printing process, which took place a few hours before the exam started at 10.30.

The woman “thought it was good to send a description [of the exam] to a person, which is unacceptable and incomprehensible,” Prodromou said.

After the teacher sent the social media message on Monday morning, the topic was leaked to more students before many had even left for school to sit the exam. In the message, the teacher said the paper was difficult and mentioned what was included in it.

The ministry, who said it was informed about the leak an hour before the exam, investigated the claim and immediately gave instructions for the exam to stop.

This was about 30 minutes after students started the exam.

Students were then halted and proceeded with a different exam at 11.30am, despite teachers and students calling for the exam to be postponed for a later date.

After the end of the exam, students told reporters that some of them lost their train of thought and found it more challenging to concentrate on the new exam while others had managed to complete a large part of the previous one.

This situation appears that it could have been prevented, since House Education Committee chairman Pavlos Mylonas said on Tuesday that they received complaints about a possible leak of the national exam earlier.

But he said they were not able to intervene on the eve of the exam because they would “end a process which is dangerous”.

“We should let the children unhindered to complete the twice-yearly exams,” the chairman of the house education committee said.

He urged those involved to wait for the completion of the investigation, saying they will examine the credibility issue that emerged with the education ministry.

Regarding the students who did not take the second exam, the minister said it concerns 250 teenagers while another 66 were absent.

Those cases will be examined, and students will have the opportunity to pass a second set of examinations.

“Solutions will be provided for everyone,” Prodromou said.

On Tuesday morning, head of the secondary schools’ parents association Loizos Constantinou apologised to students for the inconvenience.

A joint announcement signed by secondary education teachers’ union Oelmek, parents associations and students on Tuesday called for the twice-yearly exams to be abolished altogether.

In their statement, the groups condemned the leak of the exam questions, saying the incident proves the “vulnerabilities” of the newly introduced examination system.

They added the management of the situation by the ministry was “tragic” and ignored the students’ mental state. “The ministry bears responsibility for what happened after the leak,” the statement said.

The teachers’ and parents’ unions noted they will not accept the victimisation of any student and called for the ministry to offer the option to all to retake the Modern Greek exam.

“Decisions should be announced today,” the unions said, so that students can calm down and proceed with the rest of their exams.

The statement also repeated students, parents and teachers opposition to the new system of assessment, which has now lost its credibility.

“In fact, they [exams] should have already been abolished,” they noted, calling for the president and house president to intervene and resolve the matter.

For the first time, students from all grades of high school now take an exam at the end of the first academic semester and again after the second for the material taught during the respective four months. This means final year students take those exams on top of the Pancyprian exams at the end of the year for entry to state universities in Cyprus and Greece.

A proposal submitted by the minister two years ago to abolish Pancyprians and use the twice-yearly exams for entry to universities was met with strong disagreement by the parties involved.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, student union Psem put up banners outside the education ministry against the introduction of the twice-yearly exams, calling them a “fiasco”.