Northern Ireland school exams: Gerry Campbell to become CCEA chief executive

The current head of the Catholic schools body has been appointed as the new chief executive of the Northern Ireland exams board.

Gerry Campbell has been chief executive of the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools (CCMS) since 2017.

He has now been appointed as the new head of the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA).

CCEA runs most of the GCSE, AS and A-level qualifications taken by pupils in Northern Ireland.

It is not yet clear when Mr Campbell will leave CCMS for his new post, but it will mean that CCMS will also be seeking a new chief executive.

Set up in 1989, CCMS is the umbrella body managing about 450 Catholic schools in Northern Ireland.

During his time as its head, Mr Campbell has been a staunch defender of the right of parents to choose faith-based schools for their children.

In December 2021, he said that "in a growing secular and pluralist society, the distinct contribution of Catholic schools is essential to sustaining a modern and diverse society".

He also previously expressed concerns about how some aspects of a new law to promote and expand integrated education would affect Catholic schools.

Covid exam issues

Prior to joining CCMS, Mr Campbell had worked for Colleges NI and the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People.

Bishops Donal McKeown, the chair of CCMS, paid tribute to Mr Campbell's "leadership, sense of community and passion for education".

The CCEA, meanwhile, has had a high profile in recent years.

In 2020, it was widely criticised for the way A-levels were graded after exams were cancelled during the Covid pandemic, causing a U-turn from the then education minister Peter Weir.

Mr Weir decided that grades calculated by schools alone should be used to give pupils results after many initially had been lowered during standardisation by CCEA.

When formal exams returned again in 2022, there were relatively few problems.

However, the interim head of CCEA, Margaret Farragher, resigned in the summer of 2022 before exam results were provided to students.

In resigning, Ms Farragher alleged that she was "treated less favourably and faced ongoing harassment and bullying" at the organisation.

Ms Farragher is currently in a senior role with the Scottish Qualifications Authority and has just been appointed as chief executive of the Joint Council for Qualifications - the umbrella body for the eight largest providers of qualifications in the UK.