Students left in a fluster as half of paper missing
The State Examinations Commission (SEC) has apologised for the error which meant some of the higher level candidates affected were given extra time to finish the exam.
When the commission was made aware that the centre section of the papers was missing at 16 south Dublin schools, it faxed and emailed the missing four pages with four of the nine questions within about half an hour of the 2pm start.
Students were instructed to proceed with the sections available while the full paper was being printed, but Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) accounting spokeswoman Áine Ní Chéidigh said this would not ease the problems for most candidates.
“Students need to see all the questions in the exam at the start to decide what time to give to answering each one. And not all students automatically start with the first section, many will start with whichever question they are most comfortable with but these students didn’t have that option,” she said.
Maureen Shanahan of the Business Teachers’ Association of Ireland (BTAI) said the impact might depend on what stage of the exam the replacement questions were provided.
A SEC spokesperson could not say if the papers with the errors in them had been printed by themselves or by the British firm contracted to print some papers. It is also uncertain whether examiners marking the scripts will be made aware that the candidates were in the schools hit by the missing questions.
“The aspiration of any examining body, including the SEC, is to preside over a system that is completely error free. However, it is recognised, in examining circles, that this will always be an aspiration rather than a completely achievable goal,” the SEC spokesperson said.
