Recent Exam mistakes
 

For those who have been around for awhile in this environment the fact that there have been mistakes in exam papers is not new nor new across the awarding body providers. The main different today seems to be every mistake, whoever makes it, for whatever reason is picked up and dissected by all concerned. This is not an argument against exposing these unfortunate events. On the contrary it is rather surprising that one of the key areas of our establishment, exams seems to remain clouded in mystery and secrecy. 
 

So what do such events spell out for the exams office community. We are all aware that awarding bodies do have in place procedures to deal with type of event. The allocation of marks to students who have taken these papers will be decided and distributed by an awarding committee at the various awarding bodies involved. That is how it has always been. 
 

Those assessment decisions are beyond our remit and rightly so but from an exam office point of view no one will take account of the stress and strain placed upon the exam office staff and invigilators who had to confront rooms of students battling with those failed papers. There was no mention of such problems until after the event.
 

Secondly, the exams office staff and academic staff have to face the repercussions of such events. Should a student, for example get an enhanced mark for one of those papers having attempted one of the failed questions while another student who did their best but did not attempt such a question,  ends up with a lower mark. This article is not about justice or fairness when awarding marks and grades but gives one an opportunity to highlight how such events have an impact on exams office staff durability when confronted in this way. No one until now has represented their views and contribution under these difficult curcumstances.
 

While these processes and decisions sit outside the exam office delivery remit the point worth making is that exams office staff have to face these sorts of situations day-in-day-out. They have to deal with the stresses and strains of the job when trying to service these students’ needs when so much is out of their control and so much is dependent on awarding body support and advice. 
 

While the EOA welcomes the increased transparency being encouraged across the exam spectrum by the new regulator Ofqual, one must also stress that in this new world, all aspects of such activity need to be dealt with a more realistic, less emotional, more joined up way,  with ultimately students welfare, continuing to be at the heart of these discussions and outcomes.