Future of exam blunder superintendent hangs in the balance

A DECISION will not be made until later this year on whether to pay or offer work again to the superintendent whose blunder cost the State €1.7 million and disrupted the Leaving Certificate exam for more than 50,000 students last month.

A report into the incident from the State Examinations Commission (SEC) published by Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe last month found that students in the exam hall at St Oliver’s Community College in Drogheda, Co Louth, did not see the English Paper 2 question sheet for any more than 25 seconds.

However, it was time enough for the contents to be seen by a number of students, and details of the poets being examined and the themes of drama questions to appear in mobile phone messages and on internet services like Twitter, Bebo and a number of web diaries or blogs.

All 52,000 Leaving Certificate English students had to return to exam centres three days later on Saturday morning, June 6, to take the alternative papers because the issue was not reported to the SEC in time to arrange for the back-up exam to be sent to all 2,000 exam centres around the country.

The estimated cost of re-arranging the exam is €1.7m, including around €750,000 in school bus expenses for students on the Saturday, and the rest in additional payments to exam superintendents, delivery charges for the alternative exam and payments for schools’ staff to open and tidy exam centres.

All exam superintendents are paid €294 for the first day of the exams and €117 for each subsequent day they work, as well as travel and subsistence expenses.

While the superintendent involved in the security breach was suspended from further work at this year’s state exams for failing to safeguard the security and integrity of the examination papers, the question of his future relationship with the SEC remains undecided.

“There is a process in place for the circumstances when superintendents are found to be in breach of the regulations governing the conduct of their work on state examinations which includes an opportunity for the individual to respond,” a spokesperson said. “On conclusion of this process, a decision is made in relation to payment for the work completed and in relation to future appointments. This process will be undertaken in the autumn.”

The SEC official who investigated the breach reported that the superintendent was most upset about what happened and was very contrite. The man is a retired teacher who had worked at a different school to the Drogheda school where the incident took place.

The SEC investigation found that, despite clear instructions to all superintendents, he opened the wrong exam paper parcel when English Paper 1 was supposed to have been handed out. But he did not report the issue to the SEC, even when examinations and assessment managers (EAM) visited his exam hall at 10am that morning, less than an hour after the incident.

It was 3.55pm before the SEC was notified of a possible security breach, when the school principal reported information he had received from an exam student’s parent, and the incident was only confirmed at 5.30pm after contact was made with the superintendent.