The Department of Education is to study the pattern of rechecks in this year's honours English Leaving Certificate exam to see if any examiners marked it with insufficient care, The Irish Times has learned.
A Department spokesman said yesterday that in the light of recent concern about inconsistencies in marking the exam, the batches of scripts sent out to different examiners would be "examined very carefully". If any examiners had not marked the exam in accordance with the prescribed marking scheme, they would be removed.
The main secondary teachers' union, the ASTI, has said that if a particular examiner is shown to be producing incorrect results, the union would not defend him or her. All examiners are seconded teachers.
On Saturday, 70 teachers, parents and students from 14 counties met in Athlone to discuss inconsistencies in this year's English grades. The meeting was called by Mr Neil Molloy, a local English teacher, and a group of midlands teachers and parents concerned about an apparent pattern of strong pupils getting poor marks, and weaker students getting higher marks.
At the meeting, evidence of inconsistency was produced by a number of teachers. A teacher from Scoil Chaitriona in Dublin said 25 per cent of its honours English students had been awarded grades "substantially at variance with their ability and usual performance".
Ms Maire Clancy, a teacher at St Vincent's, Dundalk, said in her school there had been a "role reversal" this year between those who normally got As and Bs and those who got Cs.
Mr Pat Nolan, a teacher at Moate Community School, Co Westmeath, said his 26-strong honours English class this year had been an "exceptionally good" one. However, in the exam, 18 had got Cs, and he had been surprised at this "tremendous bunching".
The principal of one of Munster's most prestigious schools wrote to Mr Molloy to say that 21 of his honours English students had sought rechecks, "a situation unprecedented in my experience of analysing Leaving Certificate results. A significantly large number of our students performed totally below their normal standard".
In another message, the principal of the Ursuline Convent in Waterford, Sister June Fennelly, said there were inconsistencies in the results of at least 10 students in one honours English class. Four of these, who normally got A and B grades, had received C-D Leaving Cert grades. In contrast, three who were normally in the C3-D1 range had gained B1-C1 grades.
Mr Molloy said that out of the 32 students in his two honours English classes, seven of the best students (with consistent A1 to B1 grades) had got Cs, while four of the weakest (with consistent D3 to C2 grades) had got Bs.
He said the group was making two main demands of the Minister for Education: that the recheck examiners in honours English should not have been part of the original examining team; and that before rechecking, all grades given by the original examiner should be removed from the paper.
The deputy general secretary of the ASTI, Mr John White, said there was a problem in getting enough English examiners, since it was "an outrageously unpleasant job, sitting through July with a pile of exam papers".
The ASTI had suggested to the Department last week that it should halve the number of exam scripts - currently 240 - given to each examiner, and double the £9.24 per script currently paid to them.