Sir, – The Department of Education has failed terribly in the handling of the examiner process. The deadline for receipt of applications to become an examiner for this year’s Leaving and Junior Certificate was March 4th.
Allowing time to process such applications there surely should have been some indication of availability by the department by early April, allowing plenty of time to put in place contingency plans. It does not seem that such a process was implemented.
I accept that many teachers did have some Covid savings and opted not to engage in exam marking activities.
The department should have been able to interpret this from the initial application volumes and react.
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It of course knows from prior years whether examiner application volumes are within normal ranges. The data it has available should have been able to pinpoint with a high degree of accuracy whether a crisis was in the offing.
On June 24th, the announcements from CAO indicated that it would be September 8th when offers would be released, while the department has only this week been able to offer a date for Junior Cert results. That would seem to indicate that few other options were explored other than muddle through.
This lack of planning would seem a significant failure in our governance system. Logic would suggest we need to review the delivery of key exam results in a much more timely fashion.
Should we expect teachers to have to commit to marking papers on say a three-year rotational basis? Plenty of countries have such contractual arrangements.
Of course it would be a tough discussion but equally seems to be a worthwhile debate to have. – Yours, etc,
DAVID GALLAGHER,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.