2010 Enem issues (Portuguese: Falha do Enem de 2010) consisted of a printing error in some of the tests of the National High School Exam (Exame Nacional do Ensino Médio - Enem), a test given in Brazil to all high school students, for the purpose of selection to various universities, as well as to assess the level of quality of educational institutions.
The issue in 2010 involved a change in the position of the questions on the answer sheets and a subsequent legal challenge to their validity, with Enem being preventively suspended by order of the Federal Court in Ceará, with effect for the whole country, and leading the Government to various reactions in defense of the exam, which had faced challenges in consecutive years.
Background The RR Donnelley printing company, responsible for printing the exam, confirmed that 33,000 yellow test booklets were made with various errors. Given out on the first day of the exam, 21,000 copies with errors were distributed for use. Reports from students indicated the presence of duplicate questions, missing questions, or inconsistencies in numbering. In addition, they said that there were questions from the white test in the yellow booklet.
As a result, the Ministry of Education (MEC) estimated that around 2,000 people had the right to take a new test and announced that the exam could be retaken by these students between the end of November and the beginning of December 2010, and decided not to consider the cancellation of the tests for the other candidates.
The failures found in the defective tests were as follows:
Number repetition for two questions:
Two questions had the number 23; The first question with the number 23 was identical to question number 29; The second question with the number 23 was the same as question number 21;
Identical questions:
33 equals 38; 50 equals 48; 54 was the same as 51;
Duplication of questions 34, 61, and 74 on two pages; Duplication of questions 35 and 73, but with different questions, the latter being the same as number 75; Duplication of question 49, with the same content; Duplication of question 73, with different content; Duplication of question 81, one of which was identical to question 80; Jumps in page numbers: from page 29 to page 32; from 52 to 54; from 63 to 65 and from 75 to 80; Insertion of pages from the “white test” in the middle of the yellow pages on pages 6-7, 9, 14, 17, 22 and 25.
Government reaction As soon as the students left the test and reported their mistakes on the Internet's social networks, the issue gained repercussions, especially due to concerns about a repetition of the . At first, the Ministry of Education addressed students posting comments on the Twitter social network with a warning. On its Twitter page, the ministry threatened:Students who have already 'danced' at Enem are trying to stir up trouble with messages on social networks. They are being monitored and followed up. Inep may sue them.This message was interpreted by some as a reference to the use of cell phones in the test room. On November 10, three candidates were eliminated for having accessed Twitter during the exam. The students are from Tocantins, Pernambuco, and Minas Gerais. On November 12, Minister Fernando Haddad apologized for this message at a meeting with the National Union of Students (UNE) and the Brazilian Union of Secondary Students (Ubes). The two organizations said at the meeting that many students had written asking for the exam not to be annulled.
The President of the Republic, on a trip to Mozambique, gave an interview on November 8, in which he declared that “Enem's success was total and absolute” and that nothing had gone wrong, attributing the negative news about Enem to criticism from those opposed to the exam. On November 10, however, President Lula denied this, stating that the reported issues would be investigated by the Federal Police and that “If we have to take one test, we will. If we have to do two, we will. If we have to do three, we will, but Enem will continue to be strengthened."
Judicial dispute and police intervention
Judge Karla de Almeida Miranda Maia, of the 7th Federal Court of Justice in Ceará, suspended the entire exam. On the afternoon of November 9, she also ruled that the decision included the release of the answer templates and prohibited the retaking of the exam.
The Advocacy General of the Union said it would appeal the decision. The judge who issued the injunction might not reverse it, in which case the appeal against upholding it would have to be sent to the . The MEC had intended to set up a website for students to complain about the exam but gave up on doing so in view of the court ruling.
The controversy deepened when allegations surfaced that one of the essay topics had been leaked before the exam. Reports from students and a teacher in the city of Petrolina, Pernambuco, claimed that candidates had been given a choice between two essay topics: "the work of the future" and "slavery." Several students, who had attended a help desk set up by local teachers, reportedly asked for guidance regarding the "work and slavery" topic. It was later revealed that a student from São Raimundo Nonato, about 300 kilometers from Petrolina, had received information about the topic in advance, and rumors of the leak spread within the community.
The Federal Police in Juazeiro, Bahia, launched an investigation into the claims. During the inquiry, four individuals were questioned, including two teachers from the Geo Pre-Vestibular course in Petrolina. The investigation ultimately concluded that the exam had been leaked. A teacher from Remanso, Bahia, had seen the essay topic two hours before the exam and informed her husband in Petrolina. He then passed the information to their son, who in turn asked teachers for guidance on the "work and slavery" subject. Both the teacher administering the exam and her husband have been charged with breach of confidentiality, a crime punishable by up to six years in prison under current legal provisions.
On November 12, the court decision was overturned by the president of the Federal Regional Court of the 5th Region, Luiz Alberto Gurgel de Faria.
After the injunction was overturned, the Ministry of Education announced that it would release the test results and a new exam could be held on December 4 and 5. The website, initially suspended, was reopened to allow candidates to request corrections of the inverted templates. The Federal Attorney General's Office said that there was no reason to annul the 2010 Enem stating that the mistake affected a limited number of candidates and emphasizing the exam's established role in university and company selection processes. However, Ceará prosecutor Oscar Costa Filho filed an appeal against the TRF's decision to release the Enem, asking all fifteen of the court's judges to review the issue. The prosecutor also raised concerns about the website's process for correcting the inverted templates.
The test results were released on the afternoon of November 12. On November 17, the Federal Court of Ceará granted all candidates affected by the yellow test or the inversion of the test the right to take a new test, upon submitting a request on the Enem website. The ruling also ordered the Ministry of Education's website to keep the complaint page up until 11:59 p.m. on November 26. In the last week of November, the MEC had already decided to summon the 2,000 affected candidates for a new test, the date of which would be set on the same day as the summons. It also accepted the alternative of inverted correction of the templates. According to the court decision, any candidate could ask to retake the exam.
On November 18, the new injunction was overturned by the president of the Federal Regional Court of the 5th Region, Luiz Alberto Gurgel de Faria, in Recife, because changing the MEC's schedule could result in delaying the universities' selection process. As a result, the ministry's plan to retake the exam for 2,000 candidates in the yellow exam and to correct the exams of other candidates in reverse order was upheld.
On November 19, attorney Oscar Filho met with students and announced plans to file a new lawsuit seeking to guarantee any student the right to retake the exam. He made the overturned injunction available online to provide students with additional resources for their appeals to the MEC. According to the prosecutor, it was not feasible for the MEC to determine which candidates had been harmed, and therefore all candidates should be offered the opportunity to retake the exam.
On November 23, the Ministry of Education announced that the exam would be held on December 15 for 2,817 students and would only include questions from the humanities and natural sciences.
On November 26, the Federal Public Defender's Office in Rio de Janeiro sent a letter to the Ministry of Education asking for the date of the exam to be postponed. Federal defender André Ordacgy argued that many students worked and might not be able to take the exam on a Wednesday, that heavy traffic could hinder access to the test site, and that many universities would be holding their entrance exams on the same day. The MEC said it had chosen the date, December 15, so as not to coincide with the country's university entrance exams. Also on November 26, the Federal Police announced that they were investigating a possible new fraud. A student from Petrolina reportedly had access to the exam a few days earlier and shared it with others.
On November 30, prosecutor Oscar Costa Filho delivered a report to the president of the Order of Attorneys of Brazil(OAB). According to the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office in Ceará, the exam contained issues, and it would forward the report to the Federal Court to support an incidental declaratory action, seeking the annulment of the 2010 Enem exam. On December 1, the OAB asked for the exam to be annulled due to the leaking of the essay topic in Remanso. According to the organization, this incident was significant, potentially involving more candidates, and represented a breach of confidentiality in a public exam. The MEC stated that the case of the leak was limited to one student, who had already been disqualified.
On December 2, the Ministry of Education and the Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira (Inep) declined to sign an agreement with the Attorney General's Office aimed at resolving issues related to the Enem. According to the agreement, Inep should correct questions 1 to 45 as being from the humanities and their technologies and questions 46 to 90 as being from the natural sciences and their technologies. It was also supposed to present a list of candidates who had been disadvantaged and allow ample room for appeals. Following the decision not to sign the agreement, Oscar Costa Filho's public civil action proceeded in the Federal Court of Ceará.
On December 3, the Public Defender's Office of Minas Gerais filed a request for an injunction with the Federal Court so that the MEC could allow all students who claimed to have been disadvantaged to retake the exam, rather than limiting it to the 2,817 students initially called by the ministry. The MEC issued a statement affirming that it will faithfully comply with the decision of the Federal Regional Court of the 5th Region, which it considers to have resolved the matter. This TRF decision was favorable to the solution proposed by the government.