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Plans for digital exams must be handled with “excessive warning”, the pinnacle of England’s exams regulator has stated.
Sir Ian Bauckham, chief regulator at Ofqual, recommended quite a lot of state faculties have “weak” wifi programs, connectivity and safety due to an absence of funding within the property.
There are fears that every one faculties gained’t be capable to run assessments pretty.
The Ofqual chief stated there have been “limitless cautionary” tales of nations which have pushed forward with the digitisation of nationwide exams.
His feedback come after three of the main examination boards in England have laid out their proposals to introduce on-screen assessments, that are topic to regulatory approval by Ofqual.
Sir Ian advised the PA information company: “Till we’re on the level the place we could be assured that every one faculties are capable of supply a digital strategy to evaluation which goes to be honest for everyone, whatever the sort of educating they’ve had, or the sort of college they’re in, or the sort of services they’ve accessible to them, then we’re going to should train excessive warning in rolling out large-scale digitisation.
“In fact, I’m not saying by no means. There might be a day when there may be far more digitisation in exams and evaluation than there may be now, however we might want to go at a tempo that offers us assurance that that is honest for everyone and can be truly implementable for everyone.”
In January, Pearson, which runs examination board Edexcel, introduced plans to supply pupils a selection to take a seat on-screen GCSE English exams from summer season 2025.
In December final 12 months, examination board OCR stated it might supply a digitally-assessed GCSE in pc science for pupils beginning their course in 2025.
Final 12 months, examination board AQA set out plans to roll out on-screen exams and it hoped that college students would be capable to sit digital exams for not less than one main topic by 2030.
AQA stated the studying and listening parts of GCSE Italian and Polish can be the primary to maneuver to digital exams in 2026 beneath the proposals.
However now the examination board has confirmed it is not going to be continuing with the unique timetable because the plans haven’t but obtained regulatory approval.
When requested concerning the transfer in the direction of on-line exams, Sir Ian advised PA: “We’ve received a college property that will have been underinvested in over time.
“We’ve received faculties which have weak connectivity, weak wifi programs, weak system safety, weak system resilience.
“Till we could be sure that everyone can run digital exams pretty, and ship them with out disruption, we should transfer with nice warning.”
He added: “Should you look around the globe there are limitless cautionary tales of nations which have tried to be the primary off the block right here and implement digitisation in nationwide high-stakes exams and {qualifications}.
“And when programs fall over, both at a nationwide degree or a college degree, the individuals who lose out are the scholars taking these exams, and inevitably essentially the most fragile college students taking exams are the least advantaged.
“So we’ve received to be assured it would work successfully and pretty for everyone earlier than we transfer forward at scale.”
James Bowen, assistant basic secretary at college leaders’ union NAHT, stated: “There’s a sense of inevitability concerning the higher use of know-how in exams and there are prone to be some advantages too.
“Nevertheless, it’s important that we tread very rigorously and suppose by way of all of the challenges earlier than diving in head-first.
“For instance, we would wish to make sure that all faculties have the capability and instruments to entry the exams and that no pupil is put at a drawback because of a brand new strategy.
“Evolution relatively than revolution feels the precise strategy to take right here.”
Pepe Di’Iasio, basic secretary of the Affiliation of Faculty and School Leaders (ASCL), stated: “There’s monumental potential in shifting to extra on-line evaluation sooner or later.
“It might imply we might not have to ferry thousands and thousands of examination papers and scripts across the nation beneath Fort Knox-style safety preparations.
“It might scale back the reliance on handwriting in a world which overwhelmingly makes use of keyboards, and it might make marking much more easy as a result of examiners wouldn’t should decipher handwritten scripts.
“Nevertheless, Sir Ian is true to level out the potential pitfalls as we first have to be sure that all faculties and schools have equal entry to units and programs mandatory for digital evaluation in an effort to make sure that exams are honest.
“The issue is earlier governments merely didn’t make investments sufficiently in training know-how and left it to develop in a piecemeal vogue.
“What we now want is a nationwide technique which unlocks the transformative potential of this know-how, whereas being alert to any unintended penalties.”
An AQA spokesman stated: “We stay dedicated to digital exams by way of evolution, not revolution. Now we have labored and can proceed to work intently with faculties, schools and the regulator.
“In time, digital exams will enable younger folks to make use of their digital abilities and can higher replicate the world they’re rising up in.
“We made it clear that our plans had been topic to regulatory approval. Since our plans are nonetheless with the regulator we is not going to be continuing in step with the timetable we set out final 12 months. As an alternative we’re reviewing timelines, ensuring that we’re able to press forward as soon as we obtain regulatory approval.”
