The independent review of last year’s Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC) has found that the three-way relationship between the BSB, the eight law school providers of the BPTC, and the electronic testing company Pearson VUE, which delivered the online exam, “ultimately contributed to the complexities in the booking and delivery of the examinations.”
An independent review, conducted by Professor Rebecca Huxley-Binns of the University of Hull and Dr Sarabajaya Kumar of UCL, has now concluded.
They report that the three-way nature of the relationship between the BSB, Pearson VUE and the law schools led a system that was not joined up. “Once the examinations started, and technical and other difficulties came to light, providers were in an exceptionally difficult situation,” they concluded. “The BSB directed candidate complaints to Pearson VUE. Pearson VUE sometimes redirected candidates to the BSB. In frustration bordering on exasperation, candidates turned to their Providers, who were at a loss for solutions to help their students and had no choice but to redirect their enquiries back to the BSB or Pearson VUE. Providers had no direct means of contacting Pearson VUE themselves to make representations on behalf of their students… This is illustrative of the unfortunate piecemeal basis on which the project operated.”