The students verdict.
An independent review of the chaotic bar exams last summer has found considerable fault with Pearson VUE, which delivered the online framework for the exams, and the Bar Standards Board, which hired the company.
The BSB stepped in when Covid prevented legal education providers from running the exams as usual, and it contracted with Pearson VUE to provide computer-based testing.
Carnage ensued. Students experienced constantly crashing technology, uninterested Pearson VUE helpdesk staff, and perverse invigilation requirements.
As RollOnFriday reported in August, a ban on students leaving their computers during the three hour exams resulted in one candidate weeing in a bucket to avoid disqualification.
By Jemma Slingo2021-05-07T08:12:00+01:00
An independent review into last summer’s bar exams – in which breaks were forbidden and a quarter of exams were not completed because of technical issues – has found that the regulator let down disabled candidates.
The review, commissioned by the Bar Standards Board, found that the regulator s handling of reasonable adjustment needs ‘fell short, notwithstanding the unprecedented circumstances of a global pandemic’.
‘Whilst we acknowledge that a significant proportion of disabled candidates requiring reasonable adjustment do not have complex medical conditions or severe impairments, several candidates do. Many of the latter group had very little choice but to travel to take their assessments. Since nondisabled people were able to take their examinations in the safety of their homes, disabled people felt that disadvantage was being added to them as an already disadvantaged group,’ reviewers Professor Rebecca Huxley-Binns and D
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 Pro