Teachers dismayed by government mistrust

Teachers in secondary education are dismayed by the mistrust evident in Education State Secretary Sander Dekker's plan that the central written exams first be marked by a teacher other than the teacher giving the class. Some teachers have started a petition to stop this plan. The petition already has more than 3 thousand signatures, the Telegraaf reports.

"This measure to reverse marking takes all the fun and motivation out of marking exams and radiates distrusts towards teachers", according to the authors of the petition. "After an exam every teacher wonders how their own students have done. Now the marking can not be started directly. That makes the work less interesting and fun and seems like mistrust from the ministry. The first marking is now in the hands of an unknown colleague. This will also have a delaying effect. We don't want the measure to be implemented and that sufficient field consultations be carried out first."

The General Education Union is also against this plan. In an urgent letter sent to the Tweede Kamer, lower house of parliament, chairman Walter Dresscher points out that Dekker is not familiar with the usual procedures. "Apart from the appearance that Dekker apparently does not trust the teaching staff enough, his plan will have contingent labor consequences. The workload is being moved around. This type of thing can not be decided without first consulting with the unions." he wrote according to the Telegraaf.

According to the State Secretary, there has been critique on the way that exams are currently marked for years. "A own teacher is, intentionally or unintentionally, not always objective and the second teacher only does mediocre checks. We are therefore now turning it around, partly at the request of the Secondary Education Council. We tried this at a number of places last year. The experiences were very good, even among the teachers."