Cheating in school exams has risen 25 per cent in a year – fuelled by pupils smuggling mobile phones into exam halls, a report has found.
Data from exams regulator Ofqual showed 2,715 penalties were issued to youngsters for breaking rules during their A-level and GCSE exams last summer. Half were due to the use of ‘unauthorised materials’, with 78 per cent of these involving mobile phones.
Maths and computing combined accounted for more than a third of all malpractice penalties, Ofqual said.
Cheating in school exams has risen 25 per cent in a year – fuelled by pupils smuggling mobile phones into exam halls
The figures, which cover England, also revealed that penalties for teachers and school staff more than doubled from 360 in 2016 to 895 last year. The biggest reason was for maladministration of exams, followed by giving improper assistance to candidates.
Suzanne O’Farrell, assessment specialist at the Association Of School And College Leaders, said: ‘It is disappointing there has been an increase. However, the vast majority of people follow the rules correctly.’
Data from exams regulator Ofqual showed 2,715 penalties were issued to youngsters for breaking rules during their A-level and GCSE exams last summer
Ofqual said the 2,715 penalties issued to students, up from 2,180 the year before, represent just 0.015 per cent of exam entrants.
Malpractice covers anything that could ‘undermine the integrity of an exam’, according to Ofqual.
This includes issues such as students attempting to communicate with each other while sitting a paper, or failure by staff to comply with exam board instructions.
The most common penalty handed out to students was a loss of marks, the statistics show.
The most common penalty meted out to staff for malpractice was a written warning.
Last month, Ofqual said exam safeguards should be ‘strengthened’ in its review of rules allowing teachers to set question papers.
In a report, published in the wake of exam leak allegations, the watchdog said cheating is rare but can be ‘deeply damaging’ to public confidence when it happens.