A group of teachers and parents in the midlands has demanded that the Minister for Education, Mr Martin, radically alter Leaving Certificate rechecking procedures. They allege that there have been serious inconsistencies in the marking of this year's honours English examination.
They have invited teachers and parents from throughout the Republic who are concerned about these inconsistencies to a meeting at Marist College in Athlone next Saturday afternoon. Those attending have been asked to bring documentary evidence of "inappropriately low and high grades in the Leaving Cert exam compared to average marks in `mocks' and in other Leaving Cert subjects, especially related subjects like history".
One of the meeting's organisers, Mr Neil Molloy, an English teacher at Marist College, said yesterday that inconsistency had always been a problem in marking the honours English paper. However "judging from the outcry from teachers, it was much worse than usual last year and has reached chronic levels this year."
He said English teachers were increasingly finding that "the spread of marks in a class is approximately right but a number of students have marks well below or above their proven ability".
Of the 38 students in two honours classes he had taught this year, 32 got an honour. "But hidden in that apparently satisfactory figure are some terrible injustices. While seven of the best students (with consistent B1 to A1 grades) got Cs, four of the weakest (with consistent D3 to C2 grades) got Bs."
He gave the example of one student who had received 24 A1s and six A2s in 30 corrected exams and assignments, but got C1 in the Leaving Cert.
Mr Molloy is concerned that the explanation for this is "an examiner who is steering safely within the expected percentages but not reading many of his scripts carefully enough to distinguish clearly between high, medium and low-quality answers. This is likely to hurt the better students most. To compensate for the inaccuracy of skimming over answers he is rough marking a majority of his results into a safe medium between B2 and C2."
He said English suffers more than other subjects from this kind of marking, because honours English is probably the most time-consuming subject to mark accurately, with examiners not looking for facts but well-expressed ideas, good English and consistent logic.
"Faced with a large number of lengthy scripts and a tight deadline, a small but apparently increasing number of unscrupulous or desperate examiners must be tempted to take the short but fairly safe way out. They are not around to witness the resultant bewilderment, agony and despair that many teachers and parents have witnessed," he said.
One parent, Ms Rena Mulligan from Tullamore, said her daughter had "loved the English exam and had high hopes for herself, particularly since she had got an A in her `mocks' and good results in all her school exams in recent years". In the event she received a C1, whereas weaker friends who used to borrow and copy her work got higher grades.
Ms Maire Kenny from Roscommon said she had already consulted a solicitor to find out how they could ensure that the disputed papers would be rechecked by an entirely new team of examiners. Her daughter, a winner of national prizes for essay writing and public speaking, got a C2.
In a letter given to the local TD, Ms O'Rourke, to be passed to Mr Martin, the group laid down eight requirements it says are essential to independent rechecking of the disputed papers.
First is that the recheck examiner must not have been part of the original examining team; at present papers are rechecked by a different examiner - but one who is overseen by the same group of supervisors.
Secondly, before rechecking, all grades given by the original examiners must be removed from the papers; at present the marks given by the original examiner are on the paper in front of the re-checker.