Dispelling 15 Myths of Digital School Exams

"On-screen assessment will shortly touch the life of every learner in this country." England's exam regulator, April 2004.

That was England’s exam regulator clarion call in April 2004! 21 years on, exams outside the school hall have inexorably moved on-screen and often on-line. In fact, many countries have already digitised their school assessment in pragmatic and measured ways. But with over two decades of digital exam deployments, there are still hoary myths, tropes, and even jeers to dispel. Here are 15 myths we can dismantle today.

1 Digital Exams are a Cheaters’ Charter Fraudulent credit card transactions can be traced and resolved – either with a friendly phone call or via an app. That mystery of the missing £10 note from your wallet will be solved! But risks are ever-present – whether it’s digital or carrying cash. Digital exams offer a full audit trail from question creation through to certification and matriculation. Malpractice detection and prevention becomes data-driven and objective, not subjective.  Digital exams help us to codify, quantify, and mitigate those delivery risks in ways that are impossible with paper.

While we will never eliminate exam delivery risk, at least envelopes are no longer opened by mistake, or exam papers kept in a room with multiple anonymous key-holders.

2 Schools have no room for computers Some schools are ready today for digital exam delivery. Others are completely unsuitable. Connectivity and power can be expensive. So if there’s no room available, we need to shine a light on external venue provision.

The RAAC crisis affecting over 150 UK schools evidences why deploying disaster recovery and business continuity plans is crucial – external venues are core to these plans. It’s possible to argue that halls should be dedicated for assembly, teaching, learning, worship, and physical education. Exams need a secure, dedicated space that does not impinge on non-exam taking students. 

Removing this disruption and associated logistics/ storage from schools is entirely beneficial and with minimal downside. The amount of school estate that is swamped by exam chairs, desks, paper storage, scanning machines, and other paraphernalia is seldom reported. And how about using in-situ learning computers for exams?

3 There’s no money for digital exams Government and awarding bodies have pledged help on devices, connectivity, and suitable space for digital exams.  But do we know how much money goes on paper exams? And the true cost of displacing students from school hall activities for almost three months of the academic year?

Ofqual’s 2015 report on purchasing only hinted at some of the costs incurred, and how benchmarking is helpful. New money will be needed, but what about money already spent? Try the £1.5bn pledged for school learning laptops during the pandemic. I wonder where that money went?

4 It’s impossible to manage all those PCs Computers are ubiquitous. Companies lease and manage kit for as little as £2 per day, or offer refurbished, supported kit for a fraction of new price. Or how about supporting UK plc and commission Raspberry Pi units, built in Pencoed, Wales? At 1/20th the price of a PC and 2% of the power usage, could we buy British, reduce carbon, and have universal learning machines that are exam-ready? 

After all, standardisation is important for fair, valid, and reliable exams. How about standard learning and exam kit? It already happens in Singapore and Uruguay. 24 countries participate in the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Foundation and Association. Is that actually Levelling Up in action?

5 Too many kids and digital exams at once – the internet will break. With 4,190 UK secondary schools delivering 15.7M GCSE and A Level paper scripts within a 35 working day window across May and June, 449,000 daily scripts seems daunting. By 2025, secondary school pupil numbers in England will rise by 530,000, to 3.33M, then drop to 3.2M in 2028. But 2022 saw 16M UK-delivered digital exams across many different sectors and environments. Across a working week, that’s 62,000 a day. So a seven-fold digital capacity is needed for GCSEs and A Levels.

An example of on-screen digital exam delivery

That’s why a pragmatic, incremental roll-out is the way forward. But the tech already works. A two-hour HD Netflix film for one device uses 6GB at 3Mbps speed. A typical online exam session with 30 candidates uses about 1.2GB in total at 2Mbps speed. Remember: that’s online, not on-screen offline, which is what’s being proposed. In terms of data – not a big deal in 2025.

6 Broadband will never be good enough UK broadband speeds have leaped in the last five years. Ofcom 2023 research shows UK average download speed at 69Mbps, and average upload 18Mbps. That’s 88% and 207% higher than 2018 speeds respectively. However, for locations still catching-up, the decades-old trusted method of overnight downloading encrypted, time-sensitive files is the preferred method – not ‘live online’.

Even when full online delivery is used, just like Wales’ Personalised Assessments for Years 2-9, 8pm-10pm is peak time for UK broadband usage, not school hours. The online Welsh system needs just 2 Mbps for a class of 30. That’s for online: not on-screen, offline. Plenty of space in the broadband pipes! 

7 There are no suitable off-site locations for digital exams Organisations source test centre locations every day, for global exam owners, not just UK exam boards. The UK is blessed with companies offering this service including Reed, Victvs, ITTS, TeamCo, and MTS. And big corporates with UK presence such as Prometric, Pearson, and PSI are no strangers to finding UK test locations and capacity.

This isn’t just about London Excel-sized venues that can seat 2,000 learners per sitting. For those who want to source their own locations, every English council and the UK Government lists empty property that can be bought or let. The British Retail Consortium claims there is a stubborn retail vacancy rate. Shop fitters have the skills, the high street isn’t what it was. If we can do pop-up Covid centres, could community exam centres revitalise our towns? 

8 We can’t take kids off-site for digital exams Organisations such as the Council for Learning Outside the Classroom and the Outdoor Education Advisers’ Panel (OEAP) offer guidance, policies, procedures, and training for when learners need to be off-site. If learners are bussed to leisure centres, theatres, and other extra-curricular destinations, the bus could go to a professional, neutral exam centre. Teachers would be delighted to have their halls back during exam season. Learners would benefit from a calm, quiet, professional location, not being disturbed by Year 8’s Joseph rehearsal!

9 Head Teachers will block digital exams YouGov’s 2020 Perceptions survey for Ofqual suggested headteachers largely remained opponents of digital exams. Stakeholders must engage deeper with school leaders on digital exams, telling the stories on how digital exams are prevalent once learners leave school. Learners are the biggest supporters of digital exams for General Qualifications. Are these the same young people who take their driving theory test, citizenship test, key skills tests, and others, where they must pass an exam in order to join the workforce? Headteachers must consider alignment strategies to ensure they aren’t left behind, and how they manage that change. 

10 Nobody else is doing it, why should we be the guinea pigs? 29 European countries use a form of on-screen assessment for their school exams in at least one level, according to Eurydice. Australia’s NAPLAN, USA’s GMAT/ SAT, and New Zealand’s NCEA are already digitised. Kazakhstan’s Unified National Test is delivered on-screen to hundreds of thousands of children since 2021. And the West African Examination Council moved the Senior School Certificate Exam on-screen from February 2024 for 1.5M learners. Are we willing to learn from all of these implementations?

11 Our invigilators are much cheaper The pandemic saw many exams pivot to remote invigilation. This move catalysed the professionalisation of all invigilator roles. No longer were resting actors sauntering in on a Tuesday morning for petrol money and £10 an hour. Full-time, career invigilators know all the malpractice ‘tells’, anticipate learner needs far quicker, and have the ability to intervene positively. 

Invigilation is too often fobbed on to busy staff, or dismissed as an unnecessary expense. Security of the exam venue, safety of the learners, and integrity of exams shouldn’t be compromised by those who’d rather be on a different stage.

12 But these examples aren’t GCSEs, it will never work Here’s a secret. UK schools have been delivering high stakes digital exams for quite a while in plain sight. Exam boards/ owners such as TLM, LIBF, International Baccalaureate, and ABRSM are just a few examples. Additionally, online entrance exams for school, law, medical and university have been common place for almost two decades. These daily examples show that high stakes exam delivery is now common place. If you took the GCSE label off, is there any material difference? 

13 It can’t be done for my subject Not every subject benefits instantly from digitising. But subjects such as music and modern languages are already digitally assessed at scale. Some art and media subjects lend themselves to other input devices, not just keyboards. SEN learners love that. Practical assessments that are simply too unsafe ‘in the flesh’ can be visually presented and simulated, just how medical exams are done today. No more singed eyebrows in the chemistry lab! Even simulation exams with consumer-grade virtual reality sets are now common. 

14 SEN provision is fine as it is, digital is too difficult There’s an increasing evidence base which suggests more than 10%+ of learners are locked out or restricted by paper exam delivery. Digital provides greater equity to these learners. Digital exams provide more upfront and on-the-fly flexibility for SEN accommodations. Paper will continue to lock those learners out; ‘othering’ them to their peers and colleagues. That system doesn’t work for them.

15 We’ll forget our passwords and the kit for digital delivery Multi-factor authentication with Near Field Communication devices used in many phones help prevent password theft, and enhance audit trails. Providing a device for less than £20 to examiners, question authors, invigilators, and exam officers drives out impersonation, and squeezes out malpractice opportunities. For candidates’ workstations, privacy screen protectors are an easy win to prevent ‘shoulder-surfing’.

To help prevent candidate impersonation, UK-provenanced digital identity services are available. Scotland’s Young Scot card already uses digital credentials for 16-25 year olds to prove their identity and age to access services – powered by British technology which also underpins the Post Office Pass Card. They already have trust frameworks, standards, and governance structures.