SCOTLAND'S national exams body is under the spotlight over whether it is paying teachers less than both the minimum and living wages for specialist marking duties.

For assessing coursework in their own time, teachers are receiving a fee that is as low as £3.56 per paper from the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA). Some papers take an hour to mark.

All UK workers over 25 will get an hourly minimum wage of £7.20 from April, but the Scottish Government pays its employees at least a living wage of £8.45 an hour and encourages other public bodies to do the same.

Ministers also fund the Poverty Alliance to run the Scottish Living Wage Accreditation Initiative. However, the SQA, which is a Living Wage employer, is facing questions about whether its payment system for teachers complies with the wage guarantee policy

Internal assessments, such as projects and assignments, contribute to a pupil’s final course award and teachers now get an additional payment to mark the work.

A teacher’s salary comes from the council but the marking payments are made by the SQA.

Teachers get £3.56 for each assignment they mark in Design and Manufacture, Engineering Science, Graphic Communication and Computing.

The figure for the same subjects at Higher level increases to £4.75 and £7.13 for Advanced Higher.

However, an education source told the Sunday Herald that it was possible to spend up to an an hour marking just one pupil's work, which would put the SQA rate at below £7.20 and £8.45.

The insider said: “If you work an hour, you should get the equivalent of the living wage.”

Dr Janet Brown, the chief executive of the SQA, is listed as earning between £125,000 and £129,999 a year. In October, it was claimed that the SQA had been paying thousands of exam invigilators less than the living wage.

Invigilators complained they were receiving £27.15 for a morning session that could last up to four hours or more, or £54.30 for a full day, which in some cases worked out at an effective hourly rate of £6 for the longest exam sessions.

However, it was later reported that the quango would ensure invigilators received the living wage.

Labour MSP Daniel Johnson told the Sunday Herald: “The SQA has already this year been forced to change its approach to invigilators over fears they were not being paid appropriately. Teachers should not be expected to mark assignments out of working hours and students should not be penalised due to hundreds of millions of pounds of SNP cuts to education.”

An SQA spokesman said: “For the current academic session, we have introduced an additional payment for teachers who mark internally assessed course components, such as projects or assignments, that contribute to a candidate’s final course award in four technical subjects.

“These internally-assessed course components are an integral part of the final grade awarded to candidates and we fully recognise the important role teachers play in marking these internal assessments in their own time. This is an interim arrangement with plans to introduce external marking of these assessments in future years.

“We are comfortable our rates for marking these internal assessments meet the minimum wage and living wage due to the volume of assessments being marked per hour.”

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “We expect all public service workers to be paid at least the Living Wage and have made this clear to the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA), who assure us that their pay scale complies with this, as a Living Wage employer.”

“Payment for the assessment of coursework is a matter for the SQA. They have introduced for the current academic session, an additional payment for teachers who mark internally assessed course components that contribute to a candidate’s final course award in four technical subjects. External marking of these assessments will be introduced in future.”

Payment rates

The following rates apply to Computing, Design and Manufacture, Engineering Science and Graphic Communication

National 5: £3.56 per assignment

Higher: £4.75 per assignment

Advanced Higher: £7.13 per assignment