Feb 05, 2024 23:00:00

Another 'fabrication scandal' uncovered in the UK's public system, with auditors fabricating evidence because data from the school evaluation system frequently disappears

In the UK, which is currently reeling from a massive post office wrongful

conviction scandal stemming from a flaw in an accounting system developed by a UK subsidiary of Fujitsu, the Observer, a British general newspaper, has reported that Ofsted, the audit body that oversees the quality of school education, has been found to have been involved in widespread fabrication of evidence due to a system failure.

Ofsted inspectors 'make up evidence' about a school's performance when IT fails | Ofsted | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/feb/03/ofsted-inspectors-make-up-evidence-about-a-schools-performance-when-it-fails

In 2018, Ofsted introduced an Electronic Evidence Capture (EEG) system to collect evidence for use in school evaluations. Inspectors conduct audits by entering records of interviews with school staff and their impressions of lesson observations into the EEG system using their own laptops or tablets.

However, the EEG system has had serious glitches since its inception, with frequent crashes that wiped out all interview notes and entire days' worth of evidence, forcing auditors to fabricate evidence to make up for the missing data, the Observer reported.

Several current and former inspectors, who spoke to the Observer on condition of anonymity, said such problems had been 'commonplace' for years and that although Ofsted's senior officials were aware of them, 'there had been a cover-up'.

For example, one current auditor testified, 'I have to keep my face closed because I know that I could suddenly lose all the evidence in the middle of a meeting with the school. If the system goes down and I lose everything, I have to go back to the hotel and enter the evidence for the day. The work day for an audit is long and there are no breaks, and I have to review the documents for the next day, so it's exhausting.'

Another former auditor recalled a time during a lengthy interview when evidence he was working on disappeared. 'I just sat there watching the data slowly disappear from the screen, like a Banksy artwork

self-destructing . While that was happening, it was hard to keep the other person from noticing that there was a problem. The instructions for those times were just to cover up.'

The inspector added: 'There is no doubt that there are senior leaders at Ofsted who are aware of these issues.'

According to the Observer, some inspectors said they were so unsure about EEGs that they used Microsoft Word to prepare their documents, and Ofsted threatened to take disciplinary action if they did not use EEGs.

School providers were largely left unsaid about these issues, but the Observer has obtained a written response from Ofsted to the school's complaints about a lack of evidence, which states that 'during the final meeting, the lead inspector pointed to the evidence on a screen and stated categorically that 'it's all gone'.'

The document also points out that 'the school claims that the auditor's draft report contains a motto that is not its own, and the evidence is questionable.'

Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, told the Observer: 'This is akin to the Post Office scandal. The allegations that auditors are fabricating missing evidence or fabricating evidence from memory are abhorrent and have no place in education. If this is the norm, then all audits carried out over the past five years should in principle be ignored.'