Ofqual, England’s exams regulator, has said it plans to explore online testing. The move could mark a major change in the way GCSE and A-level exams are administered.
In its latest three-year corporate plan, the qualifications watchdog confirmed that it would look into the potential use of online adaptive testing - which tailors questions according to student response - which may see soon see some exams taken online.
The regulator stated that it would “remove regulatory barriers where innovation promotes valid and efficient assessment”. Ofqual’s announcement has been welcomed by teaching unions.
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Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leavers, said that the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic had exposed the potential vulnerability of existing “pen-and-paper” arrangements, adding that these were “ripe for reform”.
“Our current reliance on a pen-and-paper exam system, organised at an industrial scale with Fort Knox-style security arrangements around the transportation and storing of papers, is hopelessly outdated and ripe for reform,” he explained.
Exams were badly disrupted by the pandemic, with a huge controversy over GCSE and A-level grading in 2020. Ofqual is currently moving back towards the pre-pandemic assessment system, with the current school year expected to be a transitional one.
Ofqual chair Ian Bauckham commented that the pandemic had “catalysed questions about not if but when and how greater use of technology and on-screen assessment should be adopted” in exam provision.
“All proposed changes need to be carefully assessed for their impact on students, including those with special educational needs and disabilities,” he added.
However, National Education Union general secretary Mary Bousted said that a wider overhaul of the system was needed, and that the learning process was “about far more than showing what can be remembered in an end-of-course exam”.
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