Sofia Castro, mother of Martim, a student in Viseu, said the exam document handed over by Portugal's Ministry of Education does not match the test her son actually took. Martim scored 4.3 out of 20 on his Portuguese exam, but that mark covered only about a third of the test.
About two thirds of the exam had allegedly gone missing and remained partly unaccounted for until Saturday. The Administrative Court of Viseu had given the Ministry of Education 48 hours to locate the exam, warning that it would otherwise have to pay Martim a compensatory fee of 100 euros a day.
According to the parents, the complete exam was sent by email on Saturday at 6:50 p.m., within that deadline. But a new problem has now surfaced. The parents say the PDF that was sent is not Martim's exam.
New irregularities alleged
Paulo Duarte, Martim's father, a lawyer who filed the legal injunction in the case, said a series of glaring irregularities have already been reported to the school and to the Júri Nacional de Exames, Portugal's national exams jury. He said the document that arrived is a PDF that is not initialed by the student, containing hand-written scores with irregularities in the multiple-choice answers. He said what is missing and what has been provided are both very serious.
The parents emailed the school on Sunday to report the irregularities they had found and to request clarification. Miguel Borges, director of the Escola Secundária Alves Martins, told CM that the school has already clarified everything it is allowed to clarify, and that any further explanations will have to come from the Júri Nacional de Exames.
Deadline dispute and expected grade
Paulo Duarte argued that the deadline for requesting a review of the exam should not yet be counted. He said that as long as the doubts persist over the part of the exam only just handed over, the deadline should be frozen.
Sofia Castro, based on calculations she made with help from teachers, said her son's final grade should be 14.1. She said that if the grade turns out to be different, and lower, they will accept it, since they do not want Martim to be given an unfair advantage, but they do demand justice.
University application filed despite unresolved grade
Still without knowing his final exam grade, Martim applied on Tuesday for the first phase of higher education admissions, by decision of the court. His father said that, with the court's ruling in hand, they are applying for Martim to study Social Education at the Escola Superior de Educação de Viseu, and will wait to see whether he is accepted.
Contrary to what Portugal's Minister of Education, Fernando Alexandre, had previously said, Martim's case is, in fact, far from resolved.
Other exam disputes
Separately, the Instituto de Educação, Qualidade e Avaliação (EduQA) has said that two answers should be considered correct for a multiple-choice question on the second-phase Physics and Chemistry exam. The question asked students to identify how pressure and temperature affect the chemical equilibrium of a gaseous mixture, as reflected in its color.
The Federação Nacional dos Professores (Fenprof) has also said that the markers grading national exams are being pressured to change their scheduled vacations.
