Proposals for a new outside agency to run the Leaving and Junior Cert exams are being finalised within the Department of Education. The Department hopes that the proposals will be considered by the Cabinet before the summer break.
The establishment of a new exams authority - separate from the Department of Education - would bring the Republic into line with other countries, including Scotland, Australia and New Zealand.
The establishment of a new exams board was recommended last year by Mr Sean Cromien, a former secretary-general of the Department of Finance, in an internal review of the Department of Education.
The Cromien Report praised the dedication of Department staff, but found that too much of their energy was focused on day-to-day issues. The Department, he said, was overly-centralised, and should delegate some of its key functions to outside agencies.
Sources say the move to establish the exams board has nothing to do with the ASTI dispute by secondary teachers. There has already been some speculation that when the board is up and running, the role of teachers in supervising and correcting exams will be scaled down. But sources deny this.
There is a long tradition of using teachers to supervise and mark exams and this will be maintained, said one source.
However, the Government's hope is that the establishment of a new board will lessen the power of any one group to disrupt the exams. The board is expected to recruit both teaching and non-teaching staff to supervise and correct exams. Over 10,000 people responded to the Department's advertisement for exam supervisors earlier this year.
The Department had placed the advertisement as part of its contingency plan to hold the exams without ASTI.
The Department's exam procedures have been modernised since a controversy six years ago when part of a Leaving Cert Art examination was not considered by examiners. But since then, the Department has won widespread praise for its use of bar coding and electronic tagging of exam papers. The Department is also working on its overall response to the Cromien Report. But it is unlikely to adopt any new proposals until there is full agreement with the various trade unions.