THE EDUCATION PROFILE: Pádraic McNamara, CEO of the State Examinations Commission:Ensuring that the Leaving and Junior Certificate exams proceed without a hitch is no mean feat. The man in charge of the gargantuan task is Pádraic McNamara, the no-nonsense, hands-on head of the State Examinations Commission
STATE EXAMS are a rite of passage. Each year more than 100,000 teenagers sit a State exam, their hopes riding high and their nerves fraying as they are faced with a process that will determine the path they will take the following year – and maybe for the rest of their lives.
The eyes of parents, teachers and the media are focused on the exams – and the students. Few give the people responsible for the exam process a second thought, but for Pádraic McNamara, CEO of the State Examination Commission (SEC) the responsibility is huge.
“It must be an incredibly fraught time,” says one commentator. “Students’ futures depend on these exams and I’m sure it’s very nerve-wracking for those working in the SEC. They are in the eye of the storm if anything goes wrong.”
The SEC is responsible for every aspect of the exams, from appointing examiners and setting papers, to printing the stationary used by students in the examinations. It prints three million exam papers and organises in the region of 100,000 oral exams in addition to aural exams, practical tests and special projects. In all, almost two million individual test items must be collected, assessed, marked, checked, rechecked and returned in order for results to be available in mid-August in the case of the Leaving Cert, or mid-September in the case of the Junior Cert.
Naturally, there is considerable potential for errors. “All sorts of things go wrong on a regular basis,” says one insider. “Anything you can think of – students writing their date of birth in the space where the examination number is meant to go, exam supervisors opening the wrong envelope of exams on a particular morning. A result could be omitted or a mark might be incorrect – it all happens.”
SEC chief McNamara maintains a cool head – in 30 years of exams he has seen it all before and the SEC has processes in place to deal with most eventualities. He is a career civil servant who spent most of his working life in the Department of Education, working as principle officer in both the post-primary division and the exams division before joining the SEC.
On results day, in particular, the office is on high alert, ready to take calls from school managers.
“The aim, with any issues that arise, is to deal with them very quickly and efficiently. Then you find that people will tolerate a mistake,” says an SEC employee. “We’d aim to deal with anything that is brought to our attention on the morning of results day by close of business on the same day, or at least within 24 hours.”
Errors in marking are dealt with at the appeals stage. “The aim of course is not to have any errors at all but this is a safety net for students,” says a source.
Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the State examinations is not that things go wrong, but rather that most of the time, they run so smoothly, people barely know the commission exists. Few have even heard of McNamara.
A native of Portarlington, Co Laois, McNamara was working with the Department of Education in Dublin before the examinations branch was decentralised to Athlone in 1977. He decided to follow the job and he now lives with his wife just a short distance from the SEC. They have three grown-up children. He was appointed CEO in 2003 when the SEC came into being. Previously, exams had been the domain of the Department of Education. The SEC now works independently of the Department.
It was a rocky start with controversy arising over exam questions appearing on the Leaving Cert higher-level maths and chemistry papers that weren’t on the syllabus. In typical fashion, the SEC concentrated on solving those matters and the problems have not resurfaced since.
McNamara is a quiet individual, but he’s a hands-on boss and can often be seen walking the corridors of the SEC, keeping an eye on operations. Generally, he stays out of the limelight, preferring to use director of operations, Aidan Farrell, as his front man.
He acts as the link between the SEC board – consisting of five ministerial appointees – and the 185 people who run the day-to-day operations of the commission.
“It is part-civil service, part-factory,” says one source. “You have to be flexible if you want to work there.”
Indeed, employees work in their offices for half of the year, but come exam time it’s all hands on deck as everyone decamps to the warehouses in the belly of the SEC building to help with the physical effort of meeting the all-important results deadline.
Overall, the SEC is viewed with respect across the education sector. “They’re strapped for cash like everyone else, but by and large we don’t have British-style major controversies over exams,” says one observer. “It’s remarkable considering the scale of the thing.”
The organisation has also won praise for the transparency of the exam. Marking schemes are now published on the SEC website, and students can view their marked scripts when deciding whether or not to appeal. They can even view their script again after the appeal process. “That’s highly unusual internationally,” comments an acquaintance. “It’s a testament to the organisation that it has the confidence to be that open.”
McNamara is the first to admit that the SEC, and the State exams in general, are still in the process of consolidation. He is keen to get the operation independently assessed and he has been willing to embrace the changes required of the commission. “You have to remember that practically every change that takes place – another subject, another exam component, more exam transparency – adds to the SEC’s workload,” says an observer.
In recent years, the exam timetable has come under scrutiny. With English, Irish and maths at the start of the exams, the first few days had always been something of an endurance test for students. The SEC has made adjustments.
“We have to have the biggest exams at the start because it takes us longer to get them in, mark them and compile the results,” says one SEC employee. “But we have made adjustments on the basis of consultations with students, and we’ve made further changes this year on the basis of the reaction last year. It is all a work in progress but we will get it right.”
The numbers game: the exam challenge 2008
Last year there were ...
111,181 candidates sat the exams
57,287 at Junior Cert
50,873 at Leaving Cert
3,021 at Leaving Cert Applied.
For this the SEC organised
692 drafters, setters and translators to develop the exams.
Three million exam papers, made up of 34 million A4 pages.
4,600 exam centres and 4,600 superintendents.
6,752 special exam centres and 14,708 special accommodations to facilitate students with special needs.
Resulting in
1.9 million individual test items including written exam scripts, art and craftwork pieces, project and practical pieces, oral tests, coursework journals, research reports and portfolios.
To be corrected by
6,061 examiners who generated 962,536 individual grades, leading to the award of 111,181 examination certificates.
But some weren’t happy so
350,000 marked exam scripts were returned to schools and 13,000 appeals were processed.
