THE NEW Leaving Cert schedule, where subjects with two papers are examined on different mornings instead of the same day, may have contributed to English Paper 2 being distributed in error, the State Examinations Commission (SEC) has said.
The SEC report of the security breach at an exam centre in Drogheda last June recommends that the new exam timetable, introduced in 2008 to reduce the pressure on students, be revised.
The report also recommends a number of changes in the way papers are handled at the exam centres, particularly an end to the practice where students are used to validate that the correct paper is being distributed.
Minister for Education Batt O’Keeffe yesterday said he fully supported the broad thrust of the SEC recommendations.
However, Fine Gael and Labour education spokesmen have called for more fundamental reforms of the examination system.
Until 2008 exams in subjects with two papers, such as English, were held on the one day. The new timetable schedules these papers on separate mornings so that students do not have an intensive day in the same subject.
All morning papers are coloured green and all afternoon papers are orange to avoid confusion between papers in the same subject. However, holding both English papers in the morning removed this safeguard and may have contributed to the error, the report stated.
It recommends that these subjects continue to be held on separate days, but that they be held in one morning and one afternoon session. It also recommends that paid attendants be employed to validate the papers.
Students are asked to countersign the packet of exam papers. The report found that exam candidates were “not best placed to give their full attention” to the validation process. The training and instructions given to superintendents should be revised, the SEC said, with instructions that a superintendent must contact the SEC directly if there is any risk their actions may have compromised the integrity of an exam.
The exam packets should be changed so the subject labelling is clearer, and a new system for recording the information on the packet be introduced.
Candidates should be given their papers face up so they can alert the superintendent of any error and a booklet of “golden rules for superintendents” should be devised.
Fine Gael education spokesman Brian Hayes said the exam supervisor was being made the “political fall guy” for the error.
He said “it is still astonishing that an entire exam system can collapse because of the mistake of one individual and it says more about the dysfunctional Department of Education than about the individual concerned”.
Labour education spokesman Ruairí Quinn suggested the Vocational Education Committees should be used in the distribution of exam papers.
It is estimated to have cost more than €1 million to distribute new papers, and pay for venues and supervision for the rescheduled exam.