Stakeholder Workshop 6th December 2011 – URGENT NEWSSince its formal set up in 2005 the EOA has attended many meetings and consultations over the years to help secure funding from government to support the up grade of exam offices, influenced the need for better tools like the exam timetable and access arrangements to reduce the burden on exams office staff and negotiated the trend, now being reversed, towards convergence on exam stationary, training and additional support at centre level through a field team.
Most of those meetings have been led by government, awarding bodies, teaching associations or other major stakeholders like JCQ or Ofqual. Issues such as control assessment, late fees and the demise of hard copy results have been the focus of discussion, with the impact on exam office staff being attached to such agendas.
So what’s different about this event? As the invite attached states, the agenda for this meeting will be led by the EOA community. At another time of dramatic change with the run down of most of the QCDA support services, the EOA is taking this opportunity to review what our community needs to hold on to and to establish what programmes, activities and services are being proposed for the future, bearing in the mind the difficult economic situation facing us all.
The EOA is asking members and non-members for your targeted comments and experiences for this meeting. We are specifically interested in what risks, you see and experience, to the delivery of the exam system in your centre and beyond.
Remember always, that the EOA does not have a view or an option on anything. It never has. The EOA only expresses the views and comments of its members. The EOA can only exists and flourish through serving its members and hopefully in the future, a broader exam office community. If that broader community really want to help and support their colleagues at a local and national level then they need to engage more positively in the debate starting right now on the 6th December 2011.
This is just one of the responses which the EOA office received recently which illustrates the quality and professionalism of our community and how our members want to demonstrate their commitment to engage positively in moulding a more secure and effective exams system for all learners.
“My initial comments were a quick response to the item in the EOA newsletter. Our exams system has a very high integrity and therefore its reputation is second to none in the world. If we are to maintain this reputation and the value of British qualifications, then we must not take any short cuts in the assessment process. As stated before, qualified and professional exams officers are an essential part of the current assessment process.“
Mohammad Mahboob (Exams Officer, Birmingham)
Over the next few weeks there will be a list of key questions, issues and concerns in a forthcoming news story, partly taken from the recent EOA survey (2010/11) which ended on the 31st of October and requests from members and non-members. So please phone, email or write with your agenda items to – fran.atkinson@examofficers.org.uk Title – ‘my future – stakeholder workshop’. The reason this meeting is being described as a workshop is because the EOA are determined to seek solutions and try and address some of the key issues that continue to undermine the exam system.
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