CCEA Statement on Examination Issues
Thursday 9th June 2011
In light of significant media coverage in recent weeks concerning errors in examinations papers across England, Wales and Northern Ireland we feel it is important to clarify the situation with CCEA papers.
We can confirm that CCEA has dealt with two recent issues.
On Tuesday 31 May, we became aware of an error in a GCE Further Mathematics paper which was taken by 122 students from 32 schools.
An error had been identified as part of CCEA's quality procedures and the paper was sent to the printers for correction. During this process a new error was introduced by the printer.
This related to one part of the last question on the paper and was worth 4 marks out of a total of 75 marks.
A separate issue emerged on Monday 6 June when we became aware of an error in a GCSE Business Studies paper.
Question 3 contained a table with a numerical error. Students were not asked questions directly relating to the section of the table which featured the error and no student should have been disadvantaged.
Anne Marie Duffy, Director of Qualifications at CCEA said:
CCEA has well-established procedures in place to deal with issues of this nature. We will ensure that no student is disadvantaged. A series of additional checks have also been introduced to ensure the accuracy of all papers due to be taken in the rest of this examinations series.
We regret that these errors occurred and apologise unreservedly for any distress this has caused to students, their families and teachers.
