The pains of three weeks examining
My annual three weeks examining is coming to an end, the first time I've done an entire series online, and it's been a pretty horrendous experience.
I'm not going to mention anything about the exam board I mark for, the paper, or the scripts themselves, that's all confidential, but I am allowed to write a few thoughts on why I've found it so bad.
Honestly, a few hours in front of the PC every day, that's all I've done, yet I've just found it awful. I think there are four reasons for this...
Too much stress for too little pay
Exam marking is stressful because students' futures depend on it - a few marks out and that's potentially a university place down the drain.
You need two degrees to be an examiner - a subject degree and a teaching degree - and at the per script rate I'm paid at, if you want to be earning the same as a professional trainer or physiotherapist you've got to churn through these no slower than 10 minutes per script to give you an hourly rate just shy of £40/ hour.
To be honest, it's a pitiful rate of pay for something that so many regard as so crucial.
Concentrated disempowerment
The job requires you to align your marking to the subjective standards of the principle examiner - no discussion - what he decides goes.
This is relatively easy to do, but it does require some degree of concentration and it takes about half a day to work through a dozen scripts until you've 'got it', and you know the reference points (take that time off the hourly rate of course).
Surveillance anxiety
Every 20 scripts the exam board puts in one 'seed script' - if you're a certain amount out, then you get paused from marking until someone reviews you. Even if you're within tolerance, you get a message saying 'you are within tolerance, continue' - not even a 'well done'.
This induces anxiety, it just sucks.
Isolation
We used to get a day in London to meet and standardise a dozen scripts in teams collectively which at least gave you a day to ask questions and meet people - now it's all online, with a distant team leader and an even more distant chief examiner, it's a thoroughly lonely experience.
And finally....
Nothing to do with the exams themselves but I'd planned to be done with all of this by now, and I'm behind, and I've got marking piling up from elsewhere - so here I am just marking, while in my grand plan I should be on a break, tidying the house.
Perhaps I should just get over it?
I could try and take the positive view on all of this - it's just 3 weeks, it's a few hundred quid in my pocket, it's working from home - and most jobs involve surveillance, disempowerment, anxiety and crap pay.
Then again, I'd rather not have to do this again next year, so I guess I need to set some earnings and expenditure targets for the next 6 months that empower me to jack it in!
I mean, in terms of unfun jobs examining tops out! It's way out there in the lead.
One plus side is that it's made me realise I need to focus on earning money by doing stuff I enjoy. This isn't how to do that!
Image source
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/11125906/Examiners-failing-to-spot-A-answers-say-schools.html
That sounds brutal, and so alienating! I hate marking like that as well, but at least I get to work with the students all year so there’s a tiny bit of a connection.
The student industry seems to be getting out of control... even academia is on an assembly line now.
Are these high school exams or something?
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I'd rather not say too much about which exams - just below degree level.
It is an industry!
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I can imagine that is pretty intense, but repetitive. Some tips of exam marking cannot be automated. It is not something I've ever done. It ought to be paid better, but then so should most jobs in education.
So glad I done with it many years ago
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Several of my friends have done exam marking and I've never understood why. It has always seemed a soulless thankless task, with the marker locked away in an upstairs room while the rest of us get on with life. I know it's paid for a holiday or helped with the mortgage, but still. You're right ... find another way to get that bit of income!
It is a nice chunk of income and handy for the other blog of course. But still time to leave it alone me thinks.
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Yes, of course. It's about transition, isn't it? I've just decided to give up something that brings in a big chunk of income. It's tempting to keep it, but it's also holding me back from moving into other things.
This has to be the Key! It's one I'm beginning to fit in the door myself.......and turn....and find that it works and truly does 'unlock' 🔆
Yes I'm hoping I won't need this safety net next year! Just gotta pile into work mode this Autumn and I should be fine!
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Well then, may that Autumn mode have enjoyment embedded within its notion of 'work' :)
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