Adjudication No. 1310  (adjudicated March 2006)

The Press Council has upheld in part a complaint brought by the King Khalid Islamic College of Victoria against the Sunday Herald Sun regarding a two-page table entitled How Your School Rates published in the 10 July 2005 edition of the paper.

The thrust of the complaint was that the table produced an incorrect ranking of the performance of the students of the College.

The College, through its solicitors, sought the publication of a correction which would have placed the college on a higher ranking. The newspaper pointed out a confusion in the correction proposed by the College.

The heading to the table clearly stated the criteria selected by the newspaper for the ranking:

The Tables represent students who applied for university courses and show the percentage of those who received at least one university offer. The average is calculated from the results of each year since 2002.

The proposed correction had included offers from other tertiary institutions, such as TAFE colleges, which fell outside the published criteria.

A slightly revised correction was then sent to the newspaper, which said that it stood by its table, relying on data which are "publicly available from the Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre [VTAC]" and do "not refer to information which is available only to schools by using a password to access the VTAC database". The revised correction was not published.

The College maintained that the newspaper had relied on 'false data' not obtained from VTAC to produce the "league" table and that the only source of data to effect such a ranking exercise should have been VTAC. The issue of contention is whether the newspaper got its data from VTAC. The newspaper relied on a consultant to effect the ranking.

Both parties agreed to a mediation conducted by the Press Council and agreement was reached that the newspaper would send a letter to the College in terms agreed to at the mediation. The College was not satisfied with the first letter sent by the newspaper as it contained a material deviation from the agreed terms and also with a subsequently amended letter. The amended letter used the words 'data which may not have been supplied by VTAC' instead of 'data were not supplied by VTAC'. It would not be unreasonable for the complainant to perceive a lack of good faith on the part of the newspaper in resolving the matter.

To the extent that no redress to its concerns has been offered to the College, the complaint is upheld.

On the general issue, the Council notes the importance of including in newspaper "league" tables methodology information that allows independent validation of the rankings in the tables.

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