Chat rooms and blogs used in Leaving Cert probe

WEBSITES, chat rooms and blogs helped confirm a breach in security that led to the postponement of a Leaving Certificate exam paper, a report published yesterday has found. The State Examinations Commission (SEC) monitored the internet after receiving a phonecall from the principal of St Oliver's Community College in Drogheda, Co Louth, to warn a breach may have occurred. The principal made the call on June 3 after being contacted by parents of two exam students attending two different Drogheda schools who said they believed a security breach had taken place in his school.

The principal said the students had named a poet whom they believed featured in English paper 2. The students had sat English paper 1 that morning and were due to sit paper 2 on the morning of June 4. It subsequently emerged names of three poets on paper 2 were known as well as a question on Macbeth related to "deception".

The SEC's worst fears were confirmed in internet posts on exam-related sites and the paper had to be postponed until June 6 at considerable inconvenience to the SEC and considerable distress to 53,000 Leaving Certificate students. An investigation into the breach confirmed human error was responsible. The superintendent in the centre had not adhered to detailed security procedures set out by the SEC and, after mistakenly distributing the wrong paper to 46 students, failed to notify anyone about the breach. He subsequently claimed he did not believe students had seen details of paper 2 because he retrieved the papers immediately.

However CCTV footage showed a 25-second time lapse and a three-minute delay retrieving a paper from a second exam room.

A number of options were considered after the SEC was satisfied the paper had been compromised, including maintaining the exam schedule using an alternative paper, but An Post could not guarantee delivery to every exam centre by 9.30am on June 4. The SEC also looked at postponing the exam to Saturday, June 13, but this was ruled out because the majority of students would have completed their exams by then "and would have made holiday and other commitments". June 6 was chosen. The superintendent responsible for the error was interviewed by Dónall Mac Diarmada, Examinations and Assessment Manager, who had visited the exam centre that morning but had not been informed about the mix-up.

He said the man was upset and "very contrite".

The report recommends making a specific direction to superintendents to contact the SEC immediately if there is any risk that the integrity of an exam may have been compromised. It also recommends a review of its training for superintendents.

Yesterday Education Minister Batt O'Keeffe said: "We must acknowledge that the exams process is heavily dependent on human input and, as such, the risk of error can never be entirely eliminated." He said the SEC would continue to review procedures.

The report recommends any subject composed of two written examination papers be scheduled so that both exams take place on the same day. The report also recommends an exam centre attendant, and not two students as is currently the practice, be used to verify that correct procedures are followed when opening exam papers.