Page 13ONE of Britain’s largest exam
boards failed to vet applicants
approved to mark A-level exams
this year, a Daily Mail investiga-
tion has found.
OCR oversaw 163,000 A-level entries
this year – more than a fifth of the total
of 737,000 made in England in 2019.
But the awarding body offered A-level
‘assessor’ roles to a reporter in two sub-
jects in which she had no qualifications.
The reporter applied online for two
marking roles in history and Latin using
fabricated CVs.
At no stage did OCR or its management
company, Cambridge Assessment, checkBy Sian Boyle
Investigations ReporterDaily Mail, Saturday, August 17, 2019
EXPOSED: A-levels
marking scandal
On the application CV she wrote
that ‘he’ had studied at the exclu-
sive Westminster public school,
achieving three As.
She copied and pasted the uni-
versity course descriptions in their
entirety, as well as fabricating a
teaching qualification. Despite
not knowing a word of Latin, she
was considered qualified to markyou have met our selection crite-
ria for this assessment activity.’
Papers are given to examiners
on an ad-hoc basis, and OCR
states in its acceptance letter:
‘This does not guarantee we will
be able to offer you an opportu-
nity to undertake assessment
services at this time. When an
opportunity becomes available we
will contact you.’
Both fake assessors were imme-
diately given details of how to
claim for expenses, and were put
on the UCLES (University of Cam-
bridge Local Examinations Syndi-
cate) company pension scheme.
OCR also accepts assessors from
overseas as long as they have a
bank account in their country of
residence. In some cases Cam-
bridge Assessment will even pay
for flights ‘to and from a destina-
tion outside the UK’.
The Mail chose not to take the
exercise any further so as not to
jeopardise any candidates’
exam papers.
Last night, an OCR spokesman
said: ‘To ensure high-quality
marking, anyone who applies to
mark for OCR receives robust
training first. They are then
required to go through further
“standardisation” tests.
‘We are confident that the exam-
iners who mark our papers have
passed robust tests and that the
quality of their marking is high.’
OCR exam assessors are
informed that before marking
papers, they must complete train-any of her claims, seek any references or
verify any of the qualifications. The
reporter was then added to OCR’s
‘approved assessor’ list.
OCR insisted last night that the reporter
would have been put through ‘robust’
training and ‘standardisation’ tests
before actually being given any papers to
mark. But it did not explain why its staff
had failed to check references before
approving the application.
By contrast, when the reporter applied
to another exam board, AQA, she was
turned down when she failed to provide
proof of the alleged qualifications.
The findings raise serious questions over
how rigorous OCR’s standards are when
it comes to choosing exam assessors.
They come two years after a warning
about a shortage of examiners.
Last night Ofqual, the exams watchdog,
said it was investigating. ‘We are closely
reviewing the evidence provided by the
Daily Mail,’ a spokesman said. ‘We will
take appropriate regulatory action if we
find our rules have not been met.’
On Thursday thousands of A-level stu-
dents discovered whether they had
achieved the grades to enter their univer-
sity of choice.
This year the percentage of A* and A
grades awarded fell to its lowest point in
12 years after the exams were made
tougher in order to fight dumbing down.
OCR (Oxford, Cambridge and RSA
Examinations) advertised its marking
vacancies through a Google advert head-
lined: ‘Boost your income. Become an
OCR assessor.’
The job criteria stated that ‘we may
consider non-teaching candidates’ and
‘specialist marking and moderating tasks
do not require a reference’.
In her application for ‘OCR Latin AS/A-
level Assessor’, the reporter applied as a
man who had achieved a first class BA
honours degree in Classics at the Univer-
sity of Cambridge, and then a distinction
in a Classics MA at the University of
Manchester.Investigation launched
as exam board accepts
Daily Mail reporter
with fake CV and bogus
qualif ications for Latin
and history exam marking
‘Undermines faith
in the system’six different modules including
Latin Language, Latin Prose Lit-
erature and Latin: Unseen Trans-
lation. A Cambridge Assessment
portal shows the modules she was
deemed qualified to mark.
For the history marking applica-tion, the reporter constructed a
CV detailing a history degree from
the University of Bristol. It con-
tained one spelling and one gram-
matical error.
The reporter was subsequently
approved to mark the A-level his-tory module Russia 1894-1941.
After applying online to OCR,
both fake applicants received
emails which said: ‘We are pleased
to inform you that your applica-
tion for the above has been suc-
cessful. This approval means thatApproved: A portal showing modules the bogus assessor was deemed qualified to marking via a portal and states that
‘the vast majority of training is
now completed online’.
This usually involves online
‘standardisation’ – the marking of
online practice papers to make
sure that candidates receive
grades which are neither too high
nor too low. Once assessors pass
this they proceed to ‘live marking’
of scripts accessed online.
The spokesman added that
since July, it had introduced a
new requirement for all UK appli-
cants to provide identity evidence
as part of their assessor registra-
tion process.
In 2017 a report warned of a
shortage of examiners, and the
need for 20 per cent more people
to mark exam papers by 2019.
The paper by the Joint Council
for Qualifications, representing
exam boards and head teachers,
said a recruitment drive was
urgently needed.
Commenting on the Mail’s reve-
lations, Mike Buchanan, chief
executive of HMC, the member-
ship organisation for leading inde-
pendent schools said: ‘These alle-
gations are very concerning and
anything which undermines faith
in the system will require serious
examination by Ofqual.
‘Marking in subjects such as
history and languages can be par-
ticularly subjective, so it is
extremely important that examin-
ers are experienced, trustworthy
and well managed.’
He added, however, that he felt
that overall the exams system was
well run.