Feb 05, 2024 23:00:00

Another 'fabrication scandal' has been uncovered in the UK public system, with testimonies claiming that auditors are fabricating evidence because data from the school evaluation system keeps disappearing

In the UK, which has been rocked by a large-scale

fraud scandal at the post office that stemmed from a flaw in the accounting system developed by Fujitsu's British subsidiary, a system failure at the Ofsted, which oversees the quality of school education, has been blamed. The British general newspaper Observer reported that it has been found that fabrication of evidence is rampant.

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

Ofsted introduced an electronic evidence collection (EEG) system in 2018 to collect evidence used in school evaluations, and auditors can collect records of interviews with school staff and observations of classes. Audits are conducted by inputting impressions into the EEG using a laptop or tablet.

However, this EEG system has had serious problems since its inception, and the system frequently crashes suddenly, causing all interview notes to disappear or an entire day's worth of evidence to disappear. That's what he said. The Observer reported that auditors are routinely forced to fabricate evidence to fill in gaps in missing data.

Several current and former auditors, who provided information to the Observer on condition of anonymity, said such problems had been 'common' for years and that Ofsted's top brass had been aware of them. Regardless, he said, ``a cover-up has been carried out.''

For example, one current auditor said, ``In the middle of a meeting with the school, all the evidence could suddenly be lost, so you have to make sure you don't let that show.'' If you lose everything, you have to go back to the hotel and enter one day's worth of evidence, but the work on the day of the audit is long and there are no breaks, and you have to read the documents for the next day. 'It's exhausting,' he testified.

Another former auditor described the time when the evidence he was creating disappears during a long interview: ``I just sat there and watched the evidence disappear bit by bit from the screen, like Banksy's artwork

self-destructing .'' While something like that is happening, it's hard to make the other person feel like there's a problem.The instructions for such a situation are to just fix the situation. It was,” he recalled.

The auditor added: “I have no doubt that there are senior leaders at Ofsted who are aware of these issues.”

According to the Observer, some auditors said they were threatened by Ofsted with ``disciplinary action if they did not use the EEG'' when they were creating documents in Microsoft Word because they did not trust the EEG. is.

School providers were told little about these issues, but the Observer has obtained Ofsted's written response to the school's complaints about a lack of evidence. 'During the final meeting, the lead auditor pointed to the evidence on the screen and clearly said, 'It's all gone,'' the school's complaint said.

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

Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, told the Observer: 'This is similar to the Post Office scandal. Stories of auditors fabricating missing evidence or working from memory are abhorrent. 'This is unacceptable as a way of teaching. If this is becoming the norm, all audits conducted over the past five years should be ignored in principle.' I talked to him.