Exposed | Driving test centres DO have quotas to meet

Whistleblower confirms what learner drivers have long suspected. Driving test centres do have ‘pass and fail targets.’

Who’s making this claim against driving test centres?

Former driving examiner, Paul Bennie. He says that driving test centres are under extreme pressure to meet pass and fail quotas.

Book Theory Test Today says: “Mr Bennie’s revelation is highly controversial. Learner drivers are actually being failed by driving test centres in order to meet quotas, rather than having their driving ability assessed.”

According to Mr Bennie, his failure to fail enough driving test candidates cost him his job and secret quotas exist to hit pass and fail rates, which driving test centres are under strict guidelines to adhere to.

Mr Bennie says: “There’s a computer-generated ‘average pass’ rate. The system, known as Chi, generates average pass rate percentages and if any examiner exceeded those percentages it would flag the examiner up and they’d be made to keep within the targets.”

Regardless of how many candidates came to take the exam, if the computer system said fail 50 per cent of them, 50 per cent would be failed.

Something to enrage the ladies

Book Theory Test Today says: “Get this, the Chi system also appears to be sexist. When generating the ‘failure quota’, it calculated that two-thirds of female learners should fail the test!”

Within his first few weeks as an exam invigilator, Mr Bennie was told that his pass percentage rate was too high. “One week an examiner would be informed their pass rate for males was too high, the next week it could be the female pass rate. You’d find that many examiners would fail a few people to even it out, regardless of their driving ability,” said Bennie.

Having worked for the Paisley driving test centre for just under 12 months, Mr Bennie, from Glasgow, revealed that adhering to computer generated quotas meant that just 35-38 per cent of women would be expected to pass the DVSA practical driving test. In contrast, 43-45 per cent of men would be successful.

DVSA denies driving test centres have quotas

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the DVSA denied the claims of Bennie. A spokesperson for the DVSA said that a computer programme is used, but for the purposes of predicting pass rates, not setting them.

The spokesperson said: “Driving test centres are never given pass or fail targets. Test candidates are assessed on their ability to drive. The DVSA categorically denies that examiners are made to meet targets.”

Learners! What do you think? Do driving test centres have quotas to meet or is this one former examiner’s revenge for being made jobless?

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This entry was posted on Monday, September 21st, 2015 at 8:00 am and is filed under Book Practical Test, Book Theory Test Today, Book Theory Test Today News, Learning to Drive. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.