Invigilator Training?

I saw the above cartoon in the latest Private Eye and, with Repeat Examinations rapdily approaching I thought I’d share it here without permission. Years ago, academic staff had to invigilate their own examinations. I had to do this in my first teaching job at Queen Mary and, later, at Nottingham, but more recently the job has generally been done by support staff rather than academics. I moved from Nottingham to Cardiff in 2007 and don’t think I ever had to invigilate examinations there, so I haven’t done it for almost twenty years. Nowadays we are just expected to be “on call” to deal with any queries that arise in the Exam Hall by phone. The cartoon reminded me of one of the funniest April Fool jokes I can recall. I think it was when I was at Queen Mary, but it’s so long ago I can’t remember who was responsible. Anyway, whichever colleague it was sent an email to all academic staff passing on what appeared to be a message from the University Management stating that all staff would…