Exam marking fair pay?

[Dinopoppypoops]

I've been marking for an exam board that might have a name similar to a spreadsheet.

I got a payment for standardisation today (the process you go through to check the quality of your marking before you start). It was an A level paper and I earned approx £150 gross. It took me over 10 hours to pass standardisation so I earned less than £15 an hour. I have marked for over 10 years. I'm experienced and it always takes this long to learn the paper and mark scheme. After tax it was less than £10 an hour.
I then calculated that I was paid approx £18 an hour gross for marking.
I have all the relevant qualifications and 20+ years experience and the marking takes huge amounts of concentration and expertise.

A couple of times, I found myself rushing to try to get the work done and earn a bit more per hour but these papers decide the future of kids wanting to go off to university and it's not fair to rush them.

Whether you're a marker, a teacher or a parent, do you think paying markers this much is fair?

I'd love to hear from other markers to find out whether my experience is typical.

Voting:
Yes, it's above minimum wage, you signed the contract, get on with it!

No, the pay doesn't reflect the expertise and effort required.

IB don't pay for seeds though, whereas my other exam board does. But I DO like the colour coding of the IB seeds, so you can track your accuracy.

It is possible it wasn’t there but it wasn’t in a logical place (what is on IBIS?).

I wasn’t impressed by my team leader this year.

How does the pay compare?
IB could pay us for seeds but then they would pay less per paper, so it would balance out.

£5.37 per paper, which consists of 2 pieces of writing between about 300-500 words (obviously some are far longer but...).

Plus in my subject (and I suspect a lot of others) there is LOADS of work. I marked 265 papers in this particular exam (I did other exams as well).

My DH stopped doing exam marking because of the terrible pay.

The pay is terrible - I think this will be my last year marking. It used to be worthwhile when training / standardisation was in person - a lot was gained from the in person conversations and discussions on the mark scheme. Now its all via online familiarisation / standardisation and for the second year I have had a team leader that 'prefers emails / can only take calls at very specific times' so even a fluid conversation about applying the MS is lost!

My biggest takeaway is now always get a remark if in doubt.

I've marked for various exam boards and always had a contract that i read and sign beforehand. This sets out the payments. If you don't read it more fool you.

Not sure what you mean by training, if you're a teacher that is your training. You are paid for any mandatory standardisation, again read your contract.

Yes of course we're taxed on it as it is taxable income.

I've only marked for two boards but in neither of their contracts could you tell before you start how long each paper or question is going to take to mark so it's impossible to know what your hourly rate will be.

Do you mark a subject where the questions all take a standard amount of time or are you paid by the hour?

Yes what an odd response. The contract tells you what price per paper but for the subject I mark there could be 20-22 questions on a paper and a mix of very specific definitions, and longer answer mini essays. I don't think it's possible to know until you do it how long you'd take as its different to making your classes' work (for good reason)

It was only when I started timing how long it took me to mark "300 question 2s" for example and do the maths (well it was worth 3 marks so 3/100 * rate per paper.... Then times by the number you marked.... Then divide by the time it took..... And times by 60) is it possible to work out your rate per an hour.,

We mark a question at a time not a paper at a time so you do have to work it out.

I sat and did that... And yes it's very badly paid. Worse for me than it is for the OP and I'm an experienced marker. If you go fast you earn more but that's not the idea with accuracy for students sitting the exam.

I don't agree @icelolly12. You may have the good fortune to work for an exam board that is better managed, but my last experience was:

Compulsory e-safety training that was not paid (could not opt out even if you'd done this training at school)
Compulsory child protection training (ditto)
Training to mark the paper (unpaid)
Qualification scripts (unpaid)
Standardisation scripts (paid I think)
The actual scripts (paid)
If you want to know what the pay is per hour you have to figure out how long each one takes (essay subject, can vary quite a bit based on quantity written, legibility)
Then payment is in arrears and in tranches, and tax is deducted at source.

If I had to design a system to obfuscate what workers were paid per hour, I'd probably go for something like this!

Oh and in 2020 this exam board paid £0 when the two rival boards paid their examiners a token payment. They claimed the tax rules wouldn't allow them - still wondering how these could apply differently to rival businesses...

You're only really make any money because of the sheer number that you do But working it out on an hourly paper rate utterly depressing.
When I started you attended the standardisation meetings and they were really quite useful. over the years they moved to being online and completing the activity on your own . I think it became much more difficult. I'm marked for a few boards and they're all much of a muchness.

Invigilators get minimum wage too.

This! And I don’t get paid for standardisation at all, for my board 🫠

Yes - the CPD from the in person training was brilliant!

But then I'm also working as a contract person in Adult Ed and I think hourly I'm working below minimum wage as they have a crazy system too..

I'm being taken advantage of from every direction currently 😬

I have often thought about doing GCSE marking, as much for the professional development benefit of seeing how it's done. But, my time is better spent doing private tutoring.

I still find it really useful in terms of prof development for myself. And leading into tutoring it helps to be able to say "so many people make X mistake" or to be aware of common pitfalls...

But I'm considering moving more into tutoring - not currently doing it!