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Physics, chemistry, biology, English, Swedish. The list of national tests photographed and spread on Tiktok and other social media after the last test is long.
- They were already outside after an hour. I myself have seen all or parts of the exam in chemistry and physics. Biology was also leaked, as were the partial tests in English and Swedish where the students must read a long text and answer questions.
That's what a teacher who teaches mathematics and NO subjects at junior high school says, but wants to remain anonymous.
- The pictures are perfect, everything is clearly visible and I think they were taken with a mobile phone, even though the mobile phones are supposed to be collected.
"It's awful"
At the teacher's school, which is located in the Stockholm area, this year the colleagues have created their own follow-up exam based on material from previous NPs that has not been disseminated and has nothing to do with this year's national exam.
- We mainly use the tests for the students we are unsure about and where we feel that an extra assessment basis is needed.
When the teacher has talked to students about the distribution of test assignments, she encounters a lot of frustration.
- They think it's awful. Here they struggle sweatily with the tests and so they may have to be assessed on the same terms as other students who have already seen the answers. It's not fair.
The teacher reported his observations to the National Board of Education and has also provided the authority with screenshots.
- I wrote to the Swedish National Agency for Education that the leaks are very easy to find online. When you find a sample, the whole flow comes.
The Swedish National Agency for Education: Difficult to keep up
A few years ago, the Swedish National Agency for Education tightened the rules around NP, for example, all test material must now be kept locked up. The schools are not allowed to open the shutters until the same day the exam is conducted. The assessment instructions are not sent out to the schools until after implementation.
- We try to monitor social media and be proactive, but we don't always have time to keep up with the young people or those who spread the information, says Jessica Jarhall, head of unit at the Swedish National Agency for Education.
She emphasizes that the authority has no information that this year's tests will have been distributed in advance.
- What we have seen ourselves is that this year's exam in physics has been spread after the fact and was on Tiktok, but there is no guarantee that the exams in more subjects cannot be there. As for Tiktok, they have removed the material that we have reported there.
If national tests are disseminated before the test, it may be relevant that students have to take completely new tests. But if the tests, as now, have already been carried out, the validity of the results is not affected by the fact that the tests were spread afterwards, emphasizes Jessica Jarhall.
- But of course it is still serious because the tests are confidential. We don't want any spread at all.
Can be done afterwards
Even when exams are spread out later, there can be problems because there are always students who were ill or for other reasons were absent on the exam day and therefore need to take the exam at a later time. In that case, it is up to the principal to decide on this. The national tests are usually kept confidential for several years after the tests have been carried out, as information may be reused.
- Developing national tests takes at least a year and a half in order for them to be as safe as possible, that is to say that they measure what they are supposed to measure and that they contain an appropriate amount of information. The tests take a long time to both construct and test out in the schools. There are no resources to have any number of samples in circulation.
Now the schools open the exams in paper format on the exam day. When the tests will soon become digital, they will not be available until the Swedish National Agency for Education releases them.
- That way they will be safer, because then we will be able to control when they are available, says Jessica Jarhall.