Press Release
Date: Wednesday 2 March 2005 (NR/06/05)
MARKERS TOLD TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGES WILL BRING EXAMINING INTO THE 21ST CENTURY
Local exams body, the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA) has unveiled plans which over the next few years will make huge changes to the way examinations are marked and graded.
At a briefing session in their Clarendon Dock Headquarters CCEA informed around 100 of their most senior markers of the plans they have to implement the second phase of the Northern Ireland Examinations Modernisation Project:
Director of CCEA’s Examinations Modernisation Project Martin Quinn commented:
“At present the exams process uses up huge amounts of paper with markers handling around three quarters of a million scripts each year. Apart from the logistical difficulty of dealing with all this paper, the current marking system has many challenges in relation to tracking this huge volume of marked and unmarked scripts as they move around Northern Ireland .
Starting with a small scale pilot this summer CCEA will over the next few years be electronically scanning all exam scripts so that that they can be marked by examiners online via their own PCs. We aim to start this Summer with GCSE ICT and English papers and in the coming years will spread this practice out to all of our examinations”
The briefing is part of CCEA’s ongoing work to improve its recruitment and retention of examiners. Teachers or lecturers who are interested in joining CCEA as a marker should either visit the CCEA website on www.rewardinglearning.com/examiners/default.asp, or email appointments@ccea.org.uk, or telephone (028) 9026 1294.
The Northern Ireland Examination Modernisation Project
Following the Tomlinson reports into the difficulties experienced in the A level exams in England in 2002, the Government announced a major modernisation programme for the examining system in England . A sum of £150m was made available over 3 years and a new organisation, the National Assessment Agency, was created to oversee the project.
Although this modernisation programme involves only the three English Awarding Bodies, it also has implications for the Northern Ireland exams system. CCEA has secured funding from the Department of Education to implement a similar modernisation process in Northern Ireland .
The project involves two phases over a three year period:
Phase 1 : Focus on examiner recruitment and retention and the training and support of Exams Officers in schools. Creation of a ‘Convergence Blueprint’ to ensure that centres obtaining services from several Awarding Bodies will find it no more difficult than dealing with only one.
Phase 2 : Focus on the development on ICT in the script-handling process in order to ensure maximum efficiency in the examining system.
Media enquiries to Ruth Maguire on (028) 9026 1216, Mobile 07796947993. E mail rhmaguire@ccea.org.uk
ENDS
Note to Editors
CCEA is the Northern Ireland Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment.
CCEA places learners and those who have a concern for their educational and personal development at the forefront of its thinking. CCEA's mission is:
"To enable the full potential of all learners to be achieved and recognised"
What we do
CCEA is a unique educational body in the UK , bringing together the three areas of curriculum, examinations and assessment.
Advising Government – on what should be taught in Northern Ireland ’s schools and colleges.
Monitoring Standards – ensuring that the qualifications and examinations offered by awarding bodies in Northern Ireland are of an appropriate quality and standard.
Awarding Qualifications
– as Northern Ireland’s leading awarding body we offer a diverse range of qualifications, such as GCSEs, including the new GCSE Double Award specifications in vocational subjects, GCE A and AS levels, Entry Level Qualifications, and Graded Objectives in Modern Languages.
- CCEA also offers a range of Awards and Certificates in Education, Training and Skills (ACETS) targeted at learners who want to get
the knowledge, understanding and skills needed
to hit the ground running in the world of work.
