We read the report into the VCAA so you don’t have to

AKA ‘free the marking guide and fix VASS’

Laura Newman, Executive Officer – Social Education Victoria

The recently released Blacher report, which has followed the ‘root and branch’ review into the VCAA, accurately reflects some of the less admirable approaches, behaviour and processes that have existed at the VCAA. It’s important to state that there are some incredible, dedicated and inspired people working at the VCAA who are doing their best to champion students, teachers, and learning against a difficult backdrop. On the latter, the culture section of the report is a damning, if unsurprising, read.

Social Education Victoria provided a submission to this inquiry alongside the Council for Professional Teaching Associations of Victoria (CPTAV). We know many of our members also submitted individual comments, for which we commend you! Overall, we welcome the report, and think it identifies some very valuable and practical recommendations that could really improve how the VCAA supports our teachers and students.

The review’s recommendations:

1. Retain the VCAA as a statutory authority.
2. Strengthen governance, focus of the Board on key reforms and refreshed oversight committees.
3. Clarify the VCAA’s relationship with the Department of Education.
4. Establish a sustainable VCAA budget.
5. Implement structural changes to strengthen accountability and refocus the organisation on critical capability uplifts.
6. Reset organisational leadership, capabilities and culture, commencing with a progressive spill-and-fill of senior roles.
7. Critically review and redesign operating policies and processes.
8. Continue strengthening examination processes end-to-end with a focus on stronger process management in the early stages and enhanced integrity controls.
9. Establish a clear technology roadmap with priority focussing on the most critical operational risks.
10. Reset external stakeholder relationships and strengthen the focus on external ‘customer’ needs.
11. Maintain an independent monitor for a further 12 months or until the Minister is satisfied that the VCAA has the systems and processes to undertake its functions effectively.

Here are some of our favourite takes from the report:

Free the marking guide

The report recommends making the marking guide for VCAA external examinations available to all teachers, not just those involved in assessing exams. This would improve the overall capacity of teachers to understand how the exams are assessed and use that to inform how they teach and prepare their students. We think this will reduce stress for teachers and students and help to ‘get everyone on the same page’. It would also increase equity: we know that teachers at government schools, teachers with caring responsibilities, new teachers or out-of-field teachers aren’t assessing as much so are excluded from this professional learning.

Fix VASS and other IT issues

Technological capabilities were identified as a huge issue for the VCAA. One of the recommendations is to create a technological roadmap to fix VASS, the marking platforms, and improve IT in general.

Make a transparent process for study design reviews and communicate this with teachers

The end of regular reviews for study designs causes uncertainty for teachers. The report recommends a clear timeline and plan for this to happen so teachers can be confident they will understand and be able to feed into this process.

Be nicer to teachers

”The VCAA is an organisation that is rightly proud of its expertise. However, a consistent theme in many of the public submissions we received was that external stakeholders are viewed as impediments rather than important partners in the delivery of educational outcomes to students.”

There is a lot in the report about how the VCAA communicates with schools, teachers and students. At SEV, over many years, we’ve had a range of positive and negative experiences working with the VCAA, and have definitely seen behaviour that has hurt our teacher colleagues and made them less confident in asking questions, getting clear information or providing curriculum feedback. We are really excited about the prospect of our teachers having consistently positive and constructive experiences with the VCAA.

While we don’t like our teachers and students being referred to as ‘customers’, this whole recommendation – ‘reset external stakeholder relationships and strengthen the focus on external ‘customer’ needs’ – feels like a positive shift The VCAA exists to meet the needs of students, teachers and kids’ families.

Improve audit processes

We were shocked to learn that 40% of schools are failing the first round of subject audits. The report attributes this to the process being confusing, complicated and out of step with what is realistic in schools.  Ensuring that the audit process is clearer, better, more consistent and more constructive can only be a good thing. This submission from a teacher sums it up nicely:

”The audit process makes me feel undervalued and when teachers are in short supply, VCAA need to be giving more support through the development of curriculum… It is disheartening when we are not trusted as professionals.”

Improve processes for working with teachers

The report recommends that the exam panel role be extended to three years, in order to give panelists a better chance to receive and incorporate feedback, and to not force panelists to reapply each year (noting that 70% of the time they are reappointed). This would also help to cultivate consistency in these processes, which in turn would attract and retain teacher talent. This should include scope for more specific attention being paid to state school teachers who are underrepresented on exam panels, for a host of reasons – not least the challenges they face being able to access the CRT coverage necessary to be able to work as an assessor in the first place.

Streamline special provisions

The report recommends streamlining applications for special provisions in order to make the process easier, quicker and less stressful for students with disabilities, their families and their schools. The report once again identified inequities here where far more special provisions were being processed for non-governmental schools due to the time-consuming nature of the application process.

Engagement with teachers and subject associations

A glaring omission was that the ‘engagement with teachers and subject associations’ section of the report only mentions subject associations in the heading but at least they know we exist. The theme of improving engagement and communication with teachers is clear throughout the report. I’m looking forward to working together with the VCAA, and you all, to make sure this happens.

If you have questions for us to pass on to theVCAA, or need assistance from them for anything connected with our subjects we are happy to help out so get in touch.