Secret warnings issued a year before Sydney’s selective school test chaos

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Education officials were warned about safety risks for young children and online exam tech failures almost a year before the state’s selective school tests erupted into chaos in early May.

Internal documents seen by the Herald reveal the NSW Department of Education knew about a litany of issues raised by parents after a practice run of the selective school tests was held mid-last year.

Riot police were called to this year’s exams, held for the first time at testing mega-centres across Sydney, to manage out-of-control crowds as thousands of parents and students converged on one of the major hubs.

Alex Sun and his son, Nathan, were caught up in the selective school test chaos at Randwick in May.

Parents caught in huge crowds said the situation became unsafe and students could have been crushed as people swarmed entry and exit points at testing sites. The May tests included technical failings, children in tears and an invigilator passing out.

But surveys run a year earlier – taken after a pilot selective test in June 2024 – reveal parents told the department that “instructors had no idea how to manage the children” when leaving the pilot test centre, and pick-up time “was like chaos”.

Other parents whose children participated in pilot exams complained about long travel times to major testing sites. “Pick-up was chaotic, like at airport arrivals,” one parent wrote on a feedback form. “This is only a pilot. The real selective test would have thousands of students sitting for it.”

Another parent warned the department that children could get lost in crowds when leaving test sites.

The department ran pilot selective and OC class tests in June last year in Sydney, Newcastle and Bathurst. More than 700 students in years 3 and 5 participated in the trial, designed to spot issues before the exam in 2025.

About 30,000 students applied to sit the tests this year, all vying for a sought-after place in the public system’s academically selective schools or OC classes.

Eleven-year-old student Prisha Kumar with her father Vijay Kumar. Prisha had her selective school test postponed in May.

This year was the first time students sat selective exams on computers inside super-sized test centres, including at Canterbury Park Racecourse, Randwick and Sydney Olympic Park. Tests were held in public schools in previous years.

The government outsourced the test to private provider Janison, which won a $45 million contract to deliver the online test.

A department report about trial tests dated July 2024 flagged potential safety risks for children who “walked off to find their parent”, while other parents said the pick-up process was “disorganised, chaotic, slow, crowded and confusing”.

The tranche of internal files, obtained by the NSW opposition under the upper house’s call for papers powers, includes surveys from the pilot test with 256 responses.

Almost a quarter of students reported issues during the online pilot test, mostly tech problems and a lack of working-out paper.

Technology issues included “delays and lagging with the test, computer keys not working, test not loading and buttons on the screen not working,” the post-pilot report said. While most said the software was easy to use, concerns were raised about computers or internet failing to work.

Separate files indicate that in tests conducted in May of this year, 213 incidents were recorded across the major testing sites. More than half were technical problems.

At Sydney Olympic Park, about 60 students were unable to start the test.

A report from that centre said invigilators were “ill-equipped to manage students, parents and in some cases extended family” at the test centre. Entry to the OC tests was “somewhat manic”, the report said, and inside the exam room some children were “going stray.”

One observation report from the Randwick centre said delays in dismissing students led to children “becoming upset and crying”.

At Randwick and Canterbury, police were called to manage crowds and tests were postponed.

About 5000 students who took the tests at the three major centres had the chance to resit them at public schools in late May, while another 15,000 students who had tests postponed were able to sit the test at a public school. Results will be available in August.

Emails exchanged between department officials also reveal concerns about the chaotic scenes, one education director telling executives that invigilators were yelling at the community to “shut up” and parents were in “mob mode”.

Vijay Kumar’s daughter, Prisha, 11, had her test delayed after she attended the Canterbury test centre in early May.

Kumar worries that the wait for the rescheduled exam damaged her ability to do well. “These kids had prepared for six months, even a year. On the day [of the original test] my daughter was at her peak. It took 10 days for us to have the exam rescheduled – by that point children have lost interest,” he said.

Another parent, Alex Sun, twice drove to the Randwick Racecourse site to practise dropping his son off. “For this kind of important moment, for all these kids who have a dream, how could they be so unprepared?” he said.

Opposition education spokeswoman Sarah Mitchell said the tests were “a complete stuff-up”, adding “what makes it even worse is that we now know the minister and the department were warned during pilot testing last year that these issues could occur, and they did nothing about it”.

The department has launched an independent review led by the former head of the federal education department, Michele Bruniges.

Department secretary Murat Dizdar said disruption to the selective and opportunity class tests this year “was not acceptable and did not meet my expectations, nor families”.

“I look forward to receiving Dr Bruniges’ recommendations and advice to ensure this disruption does not happen again,” Dizdar said.

A department planning document about the move to online tests shows the NSW Teachers Federation and the NSW Primary Principals Association raised concerns in 2021 about public schools hosting the tests due to “workload impacts”.

Education officials moved tests to external venues from 2025 “to remove all school effort in hosting the tests”.

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