Outsource Marking - Utterly Foolish Idea!

I couldn't believe what I was reading this morning when I read that Rebecca Allen, director of Education Datalab has seriously suggested outsourcing marking as a way to ease teachers workloads.
This utterly foolish (even plain stupid) idea serves to benefit no one.

The very purpose of teachers marking work, is to allow them to keep track of their students progress and help them improve on any difficulties they are having. How would outsourcing help that? 

Teachers need to be examining their students work themselves, and I'm sorry if that is time-consuming, but that is what teachers sign up for when they choose to become teachers. I never once heard my teachers in school complaining about all the marking they have to do, nor have I ever heard any of my own kids teachers making this complaint. 

The very idea of using outsourcing as a reliable method of marking, is laughable. For starters, India (where they suggested outsourcing would happen), does not share the same national curriculum as us, they do not speak English as a first language (this is by no means meant to be offensive) and their kids don't work to the same levels and standards as ours do. We are two very different nations and our children are educated differently. Therefore marking would not be to our standards. 

The idea of paying someone in India £2/£3 an hour to mark our children's work is appalling and is based on the fact that our government isn't prepared to pay Britain's who are in need of work, £10 an hour. Therefore, they are choosing to take advantage of a poorer country, by paying them below a fair wage - Funny when our government is so up in arms about fair trading etc. 

Outsourced markers are not in the classroom with our children, they can't fully comprehend whether or not our children are making progress or struggling with their work, whether or not they need to level up or are in need of extra support. Only our children's own class teachers are qualified to make these assessments, by working with our children on an almost daily basis.


I know teachers work very hard and I know that their hours are very stretched and yes, it would be great to find ways of making their workload a little lighter, but not at the expense of our children. If markers really need to be used, then schools or at least local authorities should employ their own, who are trained to our education standards and who can easily liaise with our kids teachers, so that both marker and teacher have a clear view on how each child is progressing, after all, our children ARE NOT just statistics!

SOURCE: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-32513932

*Please note, the views in this post are in no way meant to be offensive to any of the hard working teachers in India or to their students. They are simply intended to highlight that all countries provide different styles and levels of education. I am not claiming that the education system in India and inferior, just that it is different, much as ours is different to that of Germany or the USA or China, etc. All teachers at all levels across the globe work very hard providing a positive education for the children in their care and being different doesn't make one system better than the other.