9th March 2011 9:00
By Blue Tutors
The head of qualification standards (Ofqual) in the UK has said that the current reliance on pen and paper examinations cannot continue. In an article on the Times Educational Supplement, Isabel Nisbet said that there should be a move towards assessments on a computer.
The reasons given for the suggested change are mainly concerned with the changing way in which our young people are learning; so many students now turn on their computer as a first port of call when wanting to discover something that the majority of exams still being hand written does not reflect the needs of students in the UK. Add to this that each new generation is increasingly computer-savvy, and many are used to online tuition, if an exam can be taken electronically then maybe it should be.
There are clearly serious questions to be asked about the proposed system. An important concern is the impracticality of asking every school to buy a computer for each of its students. However, the argument is that with a primarily computer-based exam system, exams would not have to be taken concurrently by every single student. There is also the question of security.
A spokesperson for the Headteachers Union pointed out that although we can all agree on the benefits of a move towards some electronic assessments, students do still learn using a pen and paper, and there will always be a place for that. The goal should be to make exams electronic where that adds genuine improvement, but not for the sake of replacing written exams.