
The exam system can't sustain a shortage of teachers being available to correct the Junior and Leaving Cert in the long run, according to a guidance counsellor.
Trainee teachers and non-qualified subject experts were drafted in by the State Exams Commission again this year as there weren't enough teachers to do so.
In 2019, 244 post-graduate masters in education students and 97 non-teachers corrected the exams, out of over 3 thousand total examiners.
Guidance Counsellor Brian Mooney says trying to make it obligatory for teachers to correct exams would be a challenge:
"Neither the Minister nor the State Exams Commission want to be going through a process every year where they're haranguing principals right up to the end of May, begging people to engage with the process.
I don't think the system can sustain that in the long term."