Who gets to correct the LC exam papers?

Blue Badger

I used to think it was just teachers but recently someone said that college students do a lot of it. So if anyone knows, feel free to anwser!

spurious

It's mostly teachers, working ones, retired ones and unemployed ones, but because it pays so little for what is an awful lot of work (and it's getting less with all the levies and other taxes) there is a shortage in some subjects that they fill with college students. Some subjects have a bigger turnover rate than others.

Ciaramb92

I know the mocks are mainly done by college students due to the low pay (about €5 a paper).

I too thought the actual thing was done by teachers though.

ride-the-spiral

Ciaramb92 wrote: »

I know the mocks are mainly done by college students due to the low pay (about €5 a paper).

I too thought the actual thing was done by teachers though.

I thought it was like 2 euro per paper. 5 doesn't sound so bad considering the amount you would get through in an hour.

implausible

For LC HL papers, the overwhelming majority of correctors are teachers.

randylonghorn

Remember that "college students" as a general classification includes graduates who are doing their Masters or even PhDs ...

ride-the-spiral wrote: »

I thought it was like 2 euro per paper. 5 doesn't sound so bad considering the amount you would get through in an hour.

Why, how many do you think you would get through in an hour? ... say, English LC Hons?

Bob the Builder

Unless my teacher was lying, the state examinations pay their correctors €5, of which it is 50% taxed, or something like that?

As for Mock Papers, the companies pay their correctors dirt money and usually teachers are busy at that time of year anyway. Most students do it for experience if nothing else.

randylonghorn

Bob the Builder wrote: »

As for Mock Papers, the companies pay their correctors dirt money and usually teachers are busy at that time of year anyway. Most students do it for experience if nothing else.

Generally, the quality of correction (and correctors) with mocks companies is much poorer than in the LC itself.

There are honourable exceptions ofc, and with a bigger pool of people at the moment glad of any kind of work, we may see an improvement.

Ciaramb92

Bob the Builder wrote: »

Unless my teacher was lying, the state examinations pay their correctors €5, of which it is 50% taxed, or something like that?

As for Mock Papers, the companies pay their correctors dirt money and usually teachers are busy at that time of year anyway. Most students do it for experience if nothing else.

I know for a (near enough) fact that it is more like €30 per paper. That was for leaving cert English though.

Trust me, no one would waste their summer for essentially €2.50 a paper. Those things take ages to correct, due to the nature of how important they are (supposed to be :P)

Coeurdepirate

Ciaramb92 wrote: »

I know for a (near enough) fact that it is more like €30 per paper. That was for leaving cert English though.

Trust me, no one would waste their summer for essentially €2.50 a paper. Those things take ages to correct, due to the nature of how important they are (supposed to be :P)

It's nowhere near that, my English teacher said you'd get paid more working in McDonalds.

TimeToShine

30 per paper? Are you insane? They get something like 5 euro per paper, at most 6...Have you even considered how much money 30 quid is PER PAPER?? That's like 120 quid an hour!

spurious

Ciaramb92 wrote: »

I know for a (near enough) fact that it is more like €30 per paper. That was for leaving cert English though.

Trust me, no one would waste their summer for essentially €2.50 a paper. Those things take ages to correct, due to the nature of how important they are (supposed to be :P)

The 'near enough' fact is near enough in the same way Australia is near enough to Dollymount.

Last time I corrected JC History it was something like €5.50 per script BEFORE tax for the higher paper.

LC would be at a higher rate, but not that much higher. If the subject was English/Maths/Irish etc., it would involve two papers, for the one rate. Any recorrections or changes in marking schemes which result in a total recorrect are not paid extra for.

HxGH

Ciaramb92 wrote: »

I know for a (near enough) fact that it is more like €30 per paper. That was for leaving cert English though.

Trust me, no one would waste their summer for essentially €2.50 a paper. Those things take ages to correct, due to the nature of how important they are (supposed to be :P)

Pff.. I sure hope your not serious. :rolleyes:

randylonghorn

Ciaramb92 wrote: »

I know for a (near enough) fact that it is more like €30 per paper. That was for leaving cert English though.

Em, not meaning to be rude, but please make sure that your approach to (near enough) facts for your Leaving Cert is a bit more on target!

Ciaramb92

randylonghorn wrote: »

Em, not meaning to be rude, but please make sure that your approach to (near enough) facts for your Leaving Cert is a bit more on target!

My (near enough) fact was told to me by an exam corrector's sister.

She wasn't the type to bullsh*t... That's why I assumed it was a fact.

TimeToShine

How many points did she get...

randylonghorn

Ciaramb92 wrote: »

She wasn't the type to bullsh*t ...

She probably isn't, doesn't mean she was sure of her facts though.

Good rule of thumb for any academic endeavour, even LC and especially afterwards ... always check your facts and don't rely on hearsay!

gaeilgegrinds1

Good Lord I want to correct those papers!!! Near enough facts unfortunately are not fact enough to put those kind of coppers into my pocket. Ok, I just checked what I got last year...drum roll please...I corrected 320 OL JC Irish papers (went down levels and had small baby) and including travelling up and down, all the many trips to the P.O., cost of stamps etc and LOADS of phonecalls I got the grand total of €1042 AFTER tax. Last year it was a full 24 days correcting for me, we were told to leave 26 aside. I've been doing it years and not meaning to brag but I know I'm fast and effective at it at this stage. I had to correct the first hundred twice as the marking scheme was so awry. I'll NEVER do it again, not worth the money or the grief as they were incompetant to say the least this year.

rainbowtrout

Ciaramb92 wrote: »

My (near enough) fact was told to me by an exam corrector's sister.

She wasn't the type to bullsh*t... That's why I assumed it was a fact.

But not by the exam corrector themselves, stories do tend to get legs and change as they get told and retold.

I've corrected a number of different papers over the last 10 years and rates have varied between about €3.50 - €10 per paper.

The ordinary level JC papers tend to be the most poorly paid ones and the higher level LC the best paid, but it does depend on the subject.

All corrections are subject to tax (mainly at the higher rate for most employed teachers) and also the pension levy. €500 of my corrections earnings went on pension levy alone this year before tax was even taken into account.


An earlier post (can't be bothered going back to quote) suggested that you would get through loads in an hour, so €5 wasn't that bad. I've never gotten through more than 6 papers in an hour, in any subject. Every word must be read, every question corrected, answers must match the marking scheme,all the totals put in. It's not a case of a corrector reading a question and making a decision themselves on whether the answer is right or wrong and how many marks to give it. That's what slows me down the most when correcting, checking whether an answer is accepted in the scheme or not.

As for college students correcting, there aren't that many. And I'd say there were even less this year as more teachers are correcting due to pay cuts, losing jobs etc.

Eg. if there was a shortage of LC correctors for say Biology, experienced JC Science examiners would be moved up to LC, so experienced correctors would be marking LC papers. OL correctors in JC Science would move to HL Science and then newer teaching recruits, maybe only recently qualified or teaching a year or two cut their teeth on the OL papers.

CSPE is the one where there seems to be a big turnover in correctors and where the newly qualified or college graduates get hired the most frequently.

implausible

Ciaramb92 wrote: »

I know for a (near enough) fact that it is more like €30 per paper. That was for leaving cert English though.

Your near enough fact isn't wrong, but it isn't right either:rolleyes: LC HL English and Irish are the best paid papers and yes, on paper you do get up on €30 per script. However, by the time you pay tax and the f*ck*ng:mad:pension:mad: levy (the money you earn is not pensionable, but that's another thread), you end up with a little over half that. The reason it is highly paid is because it is torture. I have never managed more than 3 in an hour and even at that, you're talking about entire sections being missing from the script.

€30 is the exception, not the rule - other subjects, levels and exams aren't within an ass's roar of that. It's like saying all students get 520+ points in the LC!

rainbowtrout

gaeilgegrinds1 wrote: »

I'll NEVER do it again, not worth the money or the grief as they were incompetant to say the least this year.

See you on the 'I can't believe I'm correcting again this year' thread next July

thetonynator

Who GETS to correct them, or who HAS to correct them . ???:P

randylonghorn

deemark wrote: »

Your near enough fact isn't wrong, but it isn't right either:rolleyes: LC HL English and Irish are the best paid papers and yes, on paper you do get up on €30 per script.

Deemark, is that €30 per script or €30 for Paper 1 and 2 together? 0_o

I'm assuming the latter, unless it's taken one hell of a jump since I last corrected.

thetonynator wrote: »

Who GETS to correct them, or who HAS to correct them . ???:P

No-one is forced to correct them, strictly speaking, at least as it stands at the moment.

Correcting does generate a bit of spare cash, there's no doubt, though as pointed out above not as much as some people think, especially when tax, PRSI, pension levy, etc. etc. is taken into account. Not to mention the fact that it's torture, esp. in some subjects, speaking from personal experience ... I found that not alone did you live in an alternate reality for 3-4 weeks, but your brain was like mulch for another couple of weeks after it.

But it's definitely an incentive, obviously, especially for younger teachers. I think most people here would agree that long-serving, permanent teachers get paid decently, but for younger teachers low on the scale the few extra pounds comes in particularly handy. That's especially so for teachers who are on part-time hours and don't get paid during the summer, and there are a fair few of those out there.

But there are lots of other reasons why people correct. Most teachers will correct for one or two years at least as it gives them a better sense of what is required from their students and therefore is of benefit to their teaching. What's more, I've met a fair few teachers who feel its their duty to correct, on the basis that the fewer experienced teachers who correct, then logically the more inexperienced people correcting, to the detriment of correction standards generally.