More pressure on the Leaving Cert students... a shortage of exam correctors

LEAVING and Junior Cert students face added pressure after it emerged there could be a delay in correcting their exams as there are not enough examiners to do the job.

The shortage is so dire that attempts to persuade teachers to sign up will continue up to the date corrections begin.

And efforts to recruit replacement examiners to take over, due to the numbers who drop out, will continue even as papers are being marked.

Because of the alarming state of affairs, the State Examinations Commission has had to resort to desperate measures, according to Freedom of Information documents. They have previously included: executives

‘They’re paid between €4 and €32 per paper’

visiting Masters students to try and sign them up; cold calls to previous examiners; and financial inducements.

Examiners are paid between €4 and €32 a paper, depending on their length and content.

The shortages will mean that teaching students will have to be recruited and there may be a delay in the process of starting to correct exams. According to the documents, there will also be extra papers for experienced examiners to correct.

As of last Friday there were still vacancies for examiners to mark papers for Junior Cert CSPE, German, Home Economics and Religious Education. There are also insufficient examiners to mark Leaving Certificate German. The SEC appoints ‘between 4,050 – 4,100 written examiners each year’, the documents show. Last year the number was only 3,640, which ‘necessitated a greater volume of examining work being placed on… experienced examiners’.

The SEC also recently introduced a reserve group of 200 examiners to cover corrector drop outs (a frequent eventuality). There are gaps in this pool for Junior Cert Geography, Business, French, Irish and English. The figures were first broadcast on the TG4 Nuacht last week.

The crisis means that, in recent years, the SEC has had to run intensive ad campaigns to attract teachers. Fianna Fáil education spokesman Thomas Byrne has complained: ‘The shortage of teachers is causing problems throughout the education system and the many classes are devoid of actual qualified teachers at the moment. It’s now really at crisis point when we see exam correction affected.

‘Last minute cramming might be expected of some students, but last minute recruitment of correctors is not acceptable.

‘Richard Bruton has been asleep at the wheel of the Department of Education as regards the teacher shortage. He needs to wake up quickly and follow the recommendations Fianna Fáil set out in the Dáil months ago to deal with the problem.’

According to the documents the SEC says there have previously been visits to Masters students across the country by executives ‘to encourage these students to correct examinations’.

When a large number of experienced examiners didn’t reply they were pursued.

‘Direct phone calls [were made] to the 2016 written examiners cohort who had not accepted their offer of reappointment for the 2017 written examinations. This measure yielded just 28 appointments.’

Then financial inducements were made.