Hunters sitting for exams in six different sessions to acquire a licence faced the same paper every time, even during resits, the Times of Malta can reveal.
This is the same system adopted for trapping licences, which led to a success rate of almost 100 per cent last year.
Exams are mandatory for those wanting to acquire a licence to hunt birds on land or at sea, or to hunt for rabbits.
The Wild Birds Regulation Unit said there were three exam papers, one for each category. Yet in each category, the same exam paper was used during six sessions held this year. Those who failed could sit for the same exam paper an unlimited number of times until a passing mark was achieved.
Six exam sessions were held between February and May. A total of 311 people sat for the exam – of these, 196 passed and 115 failed. The eventual success rate is unknown, since the WBRU did not provide records of how many of those who had failed then passed the resit.
The WBRU, set up after the Labour Party was elected to power to “regulate” hunting and trapping activities, told the Times of Malta it could not provide figures on how many people had initially failed the hunting licence exam and then passed the resit.
The unit said it did not keep such statistics, even though figures for resits on the trapping exam were sent to the European Commission in the last derogation report. This means anyone could have sat for the same exam paper repeatedly until a passing mark was achieved without the unit raising any red flags.
The new system was devised by the unit’s head, Sergei Golovkin.
The WBRU said it had introduced written exams to “replace the unregulated practice of random questions placed to the interviewee”.
Yet the process has drawn criticism, even from the chairman of the Ornis Committee, established to advise the government on hunting and trapping regulations.
Minutes of the committee meeting dated October 14, 2014, show Ornis chairman Mark Anthony Falzon questioning the exam procedure for trapping, saying “it is highly unusual to see pass rates of this magnitude”.
The minutes also reveal that two people were caught cheating in the trapping exam but rather than being sanctioned they were allowed to sit for another exam, facing the same paper.
This also drew criticism from the Ornis Committee chairman, who said it was “normal exam procedure that persons caught cheating should be permanently disqualified from the exam”, according to the minutes.
Sources described the procedure adopted for the trapping exam as “a mise-en-scène”, intended to build a strong case for an eventual infringement procedure or court case by the European Commission.
“It paid to copy. If you weren’t caught, fine. If you were caught, equally so,” the sources said.
But despite the criticism, the same procedure was extended to hunting exams, too.
The exam paper itself consisted of multiple choice questions, leading to criticism that acquiring a hunting license was more of a memory test than a skills and knowledge test. All that was needed for an individual to pass was to memorise the answers.
caroline.muscat@timesofmalta.com