Teachers ‘should correct’ their students’ exam papers

Teachers should correct their own students’ Junior Certificate exam papers, the head of the country’s second-level principals has suggested as almost 59,000 students get their results this morning.

Clive Byrne, director of the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals, says the planned reforms of the three-year junior cycle were aimed at making the exam less high-stakes but said things could be taken further.

“If we’re in the middle of reforming it to ensure it’s not a high-stakes exam any more, why not be a bit more courageous? The idea is to see if we could diminish the effect of exams on students by having them corrected by their own teachers, who would make professional judgments and offer direct feedback.”