Well, I'm glad they are going to make an attempt to compensate students and I hope they have checks and balances in place so this doesn't happen again. This was obviously a pretty big mix up but there have been mistakes before that probably weren't detected and made a big negative difference to students.
When I was teaching I got a call from a Grade 12 student in the summer after the exam results were out. Now, office staff never gives out the phone numbers of teachers but this student had received a 35% grade on the English 12 final exam and then added to my grade it resulted in a Fail which meant she wouldn't graduate. I was so glad she was able to call me. Her whole life could have changed if she didn't graduate. I assured her there must be a mistake because I estimated she would get 70-75% on the exam and I was pretty good at estimating what students would get since it was mainly a test of literacy rather than "facts". I told her not to worry but I'm sure she did.
I did confirm that she put in punctuation and capitals. She was a creative type who liked to write in all small letters and not put in punctuation. She left appropriate spaces for commas, periods, etc. Her handwriting was like a work of art and she felt punctuation messed it up. I was ok with it but I did make it clear that the teachers marking the final exams wouldn't be impressed or amused.
I got in touch with the Ministry of Education and told them to check it out immediately given the circumstances. I was surprised they did get back later that day with the information that there was a mistake and her grade was 74%. They had neglected to add the subjective part to the objective part.
"The B.C. Ministry of Education says it will apologize to and compensate students who were financially harmed by botched provincial exam scores revealed in July 2019.
The error resulted in panic for many students in the graduating class of 2019 who were counting on the grades for crucial post-secondary admissions that summer.
The move comes following an investigation by the B.C. Ombudsperson, whose office released its report on the matter on Thursday.
According to the report, the ministry posted about 18,000 incorrect exam scores, about half of which were too high and half of which too low."
