RTE and a number of media outlets are reporting that an investigation has been initiated by the State Examinations Commission (SEC) into a complaint that a teacher was seen correcting a leaving certificate paper on a busy DART train.

It is believed that the teacher was marking a higher level history paper. According to the Irish Daily Mail, “the paper’s contents were so clear that the woman who witnessed it at Dublin’s Pearse Street station was able to read the student’s exam number and excerpts of their answers.” The paper goes on to quote the woman as saying that what shocked her most was the apparent speed at which the woman was making her way through the paper.

The SEC’s examiners’ training manual states that an examiner is ‘not allowed carry out any of their work in a public place’. It goes on to say that “if any action or omission on the part of an examiner compromises candidate confidentiality, or any of the other fundamental principles, this is regarded as a serious breach of duty and could result in termination of an appointment without recompense or non-reappoinment in a future year’.

The SEC has confirmed to RTE that it is currently investigating a report of a possible breach of protocol for the marking of examination material but it cannot comment on individual cases.

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