16 more students upgraded after English exam fiasco

Sixteen more Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination (HKCEE) candidates had their oral English results improved after a re-check prompted by the discovery of processing errors that caused 670 exam papers to be marked down.

The latest revelation came as the Examinations and Assessment Authority began an inquiry to decide if any of its staff should be disciplined over the errors, now confirmed to be caused by a computer programming bug and poor management.

The authority's council met yesterday to consider two reports on the errors in the English Language (syllabus B) results provided to candidates.

The first report involved re-checking the oral results of all 80,000 candidates who sat the exam. It found only the 670 candidates as previously reported were affected by processing errors and no new cases were detected.

But it found 16 cases of data preparation errors, including summation errors, transcription errors and incorrect use of score sheets. This resulted in an upgrade in the oral component of the exam for the candidates affected, 15 of them being improved by one level and one by two levels.

One candidate had her grade raised from E to D. The authority said the candidate had already secured a secondary six place in her own school and the change did not affect her score as a whole.