Exam board Edexcel have announced three new qualifications for people who administer exams. This seems a good idea given the importance of exams (particularly to students) although it does beg the question why has it taken until now when we like most others had assumed that that those administering exams already knew what they were doing?
Edexcel’s qualification will be three-tiered and was developed with the DfES, Association of Colleges, National Assessment Agency and Examination Officers Association.
Andrew Harland of the Examinations Officers Association said, ‘This newly developed qualification will embrace the broad range of roles of those administering examinations, raising the kudos and profile of exam office personnel’. So sophisticated are the new qualifications that there will even be optional high-level units which focus on management!
The real stories here are:
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Those administering the tests will make money, as will those who successfully sit them (via career progression)
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Now that more and more tests will be taken online and marked by computers the amount of people required to administer exams is surely set to fall
One of the bodies involved in developing these qualifications is the Exam Officers Association (EOA). EOA is not a union but a charity and was set up to give a ‘voice’ and ‘support to exam officers’. With 4000 members it is a serious organisation, but unless it’s a benevolent association we can’t quite see how it differs from a union, especially when it’s described as offering a, ‘straightforward structure to provide exam officers with opportunities for career progression’.
