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Newspaper Practice - 195 candidates; 81 passed - 42%

A 35 per cent pass rate must be the lowest on record and although it is the sort of figure to provoke a storm of protest and condemnation of the examination system examiners were not prepared to lower the NCTJ standards to improve it.

Collectively, the candidates' scripts were the poorest seen in memory. In abundance was evidence of ignorance and misunderstanding of law, newspaper terminology, basic vocabulary and use of language. This was accompanied by lack of initiative, poor general knowledge, suspect news values and an apparent inability to see an innocent or beneficial aspect in a given scenario.

Sadly, of course, one can find evidence in too many of our local newspapers to support a theory that this standard of journalism is acceptable to newspaper management and, by implication, editors.

Question 1 asked candidates to explain how they would tackle a story if tipped off that a teacher had unexpectedly resigned from a large local 11-16 community school. They were asked what legal and ethical problems would be faced if told the teacher had formed a close, but non-sexual, relationship with a 15-year-old girl pupil with whose family he was friendly. The school's only comment was that the teacher was a valued member of staff who had contributed greatly to its musical life. The girl had been positively identified but her family were adamantly refusing to answer any questions from the candidate.

Only half a dozen candidates appreciated that this could be an entirely innocent relationship (perhaps private tutelage of a gifted pupil being encouraged on her way to a career as a concert artist).

Even fewer appreciated that tackled carefully there were no legal restrictions on developing and writing such a story and naming the girl. The only (though as it turned out very real) dangers were from sloppy writing, which might contain an inference or innuendo of something improper.

Most expressed or implied that any teacher-pupil relationship was improper and therefore there was an immediate danger of libelling the teacher and possibly the girl (and in far too many cases this was followed by the words "under the Defamation Act 1996" which would deserve to be heavily penalised if this were a law examination).

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