Sir, - I am an experienced teacher of Higher Course English for Leaving Certificate. I'm writing with reference to the controversy regarding the correction of the Higher Course papers in English.
Mr Anthony Collins (September 5th) referred to examiners working to a "grading curve". There are some serious questions which need to be answered by the Department of Education, which purports to be encouraging "openness" and "fairness" in its marking system;
1. Are examiners required to conform, in some way, to a statistical "graph of results" from a previous year?
2. Is there a "quota" of Higher Course grades to which (as some examiners claim) they are restricted each year?
3. Are there "result graphs" corresponding to various socio-economic areas, to which chief examiners refer when assessing the work of junior examiners?
4. What objective criterion is used when the percentage of Higher Course grades awarded in any one year is increased? (This has happened over the past number of years.)
Answers to these questions are of fundamental importance.
Until the Department establishes openly that there are no quotas, "grading curves", nor statistical graphs used to control or influence the number of Higher Course grades awarded, teachers, students and parents can have little confidence in this system. - Yours, etc.,
Dunshaughlin, Co Meath.