Examiner (Part II)

There's something obvious about 'examiner' meaning 'one who examines', which is why I hesitate to say that this is exactly what I do. I look at things. A lot.

Yet that's one of the things a lot of examiners don't do around here. I get the feeling that a number of local examiners are more interested in getting the process over and done with (and then going off on their holidays) than in actually getting the work done well. Looking at the marking process and the marking outcomes, and then checking them for consistency, reliability, exactitude and suchlike — these are onerous but necessary to uphold the integrity of any examination system.

How do I reach such conclusions? I look very hard at things like the way rubrics are deployed, the range of error in specific systems, the margin of error that is allowable, the outcomes for students. In all my years of looking carefully, I have come to two possible conclusions: either the system is designed in an unwieldy manner, or the examiners are not uniformly well-trained. Or both, of course.

Again, this kind of thinking would not have been allowed in public if I were still a bound agent. But I am a free agent, and I can speak my mind, especially when I have the evidence of dereliction scattered all throughout my copious files. Actually, there is one more possibility; the range of error might have been magnified by intentional subversion. In other words, the ghastly spectre of grade moderation for no reason except to establish one's ability to do so at will.