Together for good – the client challenge
The COVID-19 pandemic had significant impacts on Victoria’s education curriculum delivery throughout 2020 – 2022. These disruptions included public health responses limiting face-to-face learning and new restrictions on what qualified as a COVID-safe environment.
This new education environment required more formal collaboration to manage and mitigate risks associated with delivery of assessments and examinations across Victorian schools and school systems, as well as additional support and advice for the teaching workforce, school leaders, students and families.
In August 2020, the Victorian Government announced the ‘Consideration of Educational Disadvantage’ (CED) process, whereby every Victorian student studying VCE or VCAL would be individually assessed, and any adverse impacts of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic would be reflected in their final results to ensure fairness and accuracy. The need to deliver exams in a COVID-safe environment, as well as meet the Government’s commitment to assess each student, required a significant change from VCAA’s usual examination and marking practices.
The VCAA engaged Cube to use a project management approach, building on existing VCAA processes, to deliver the VCE and VCAL results for the 2020 and 2021 cohorts, as well as building the project management skills of VCAA teams.
Bringing the right thinking and people to the table
Our work helped ensure that VCE and VCAL students were able to sit their assessments during a time of global uncertainty. By focusing on building internal capability, we also ensured that VCAA would be better able to deliver similar projects under high degrees of uncertainty in the future.
Operationally, we worked with VCAA to embed robust program management practices into VCAA’s existing processes, resulting in an uplift in project and program management capability. This included methods and tools for identifying and cataloguing risks, issues, decisions, actions and timelines. Some of the challenges identified and responded to included:
conduct of assessments requiring on-site attendance
management of related activities in line with COVID-safe plans
making adjustments based on the health advice of the Chief Health Officer.
We also supported VCAA to develop a strong strategic communications approach to underpin these key program activities. The goal was to ensure schools, non-school secondary providers, students, parents and other key stakeholders were regularly informed and engaged, and understood the key changes to the VCE and VCAL assessment process.
The positive change we delivered
Our support gave strength to VCAA’s project management foundations, facilitating its leadership over a major, complex, and multifaceted reform and best placing its teams to adapt to new projects into the future.
Insights for inquisitive minds
Staff commitment is necessary for successful program delivery – Staff across VCAA demonstrated deep commitment to the program’s success, including where it required extensive work through intense periods of program delivery. Framing that positive commitment into a structured project framework means staff can spend more time delivering the project, and less in duplicated tasks and unnecessary administration.
Willingness to try new approaches is important to get the best possible result – VCAA staff demonstrated great openness to trying new approaches for delivery. For example, we introduced a new incident management approach, documented the late results process and built on the visible interest in expanding and embedding elements that worked well in 2020 into 2021. Innovation encourages a culture of continuous improvement and adaptability. Clients who are open to innovation are able to adapt to changing circumstances and evolving trends, ensuring their relevance and sustainability in the long term.
