Brazilian government attorneys in the state of Ceará have filed a lawsuit calling for the annulment of the 2011 National High School Exam (Enem) that took place nationwide last weekend (October 22-23). Almost 5 million students took the test.
The lawyers went into action after it was discovered that 14 questions on the Enem appeared verbatim in a study booklet that a high school in Fortaleza, Ceará, gave to its students shortly before the test.
The 14 questions first appeared on a practice exam that students at the same school, the Christus High School in Fortaleza, took in October 2010. The practice exam was prepared by the Inep (Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais). After the test was used it was supposed to be returned to Inep to be destroyed.
The ministry believes the school kept copies and used them to prepare students for the Enem.
One of the government attorneys, Oscar Costa Filho, says an alternative would be to annul only the 14 questions on the Enem (the test has a total of 180 questions).
The Ministry of Education announced on Wednesday, October, 26, that it is canceling the tests by the students at Christus High School and that they will take another test in November.
The Ministry of Education has also announced it will appeal any decision to annual all or part of the Enem “…in the name of the more than 4 million students who did not have any problems with the exam.”
