The issue that caused student grade anomalies with some June 2019 provincial exam results is resolved, and students will be able to access corrected final exam marks and grades via the Student Transcripts Service later today. 

The Ministry of Education apologizes for the inconvenience and anxiety that this disruption has caused students and families.

After investigating the incident, it was determined that it was caused by human error — the ministry uses a complex and sophisticated system to score exams. The manual error occurred when the grade thresholds from the scoring system were entered incorrectly into the reporting system. The error resulted in the assessments being miscalculated, with many students showing a lower result than expected.

The issue was discovered on July 29 after schools contacted the ministry asking about apparent anomalies in student results. The ministry took immediate steps and pulled all marks offline. A team of ministry staff worked vigorously around the clock to resolve the issue and verify exam results by manually reviewing student files.

The issue involved five provincial exams taken between June 22 and 23, 2019, and affected about 32,000 students who took the following assessments:

• Communications 12
• English First Peoples 12
• English 12
• French Language Arts (second language) 12
• French Language Arts (first language) 12

Post-secondary institutions in B.C., across Canada and NCAA schools in the United States were notified of the issue on July 30 to ensure no student applications were impacted. The ministry will be providing transcripts to these institutions directly to prevent any further delay. All secondary schools in B.C. and education partners were also informed. The ministry is confident that the updated results are accurate. 

The assessment systems and processes in B.C. have been in place for three decades and this is the first time this has happened. The ministry is currently in the process of modernizing its technology infrastructure and systems, including assessments.

Students and families can be assured the grades seen on the Student Transcripts Service are accurate.