Teachers across Ireland are enduring a great deal of summer holiday stress as they plough through thousands of Junior and Leaving Certificate exam papers, according to one education professional.

Speaking to the Irish Times, Mayo secondary school teacher John Heneghan - who has checked exams for around two decades - claimed he had been surprised by some of the marking criteria laid down by the education department.

"Simple little things like dates and folio numbers and stuff that I would have been careless about were making up maybe four or five per cent of the paper," he explained. "The weaker kids were able to pick up marks for relatively nothing."

Mr Heneghan added that the sheer volume of papers waiting to be marked ensures that the workload for teachers is "unbelievably intense", yet still calls for a great deal of care.

His comments came after the Irish Independent reported that mooted reforms to the Leaving Certificate system have been placed on hold by the Department of Education due to a funding shortage.

Written by Donal Walsh
 

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