By 2023, all UK exams will be completed using computers, according to a report from an independent education body. David Hanson, chief executive of the Independent Association of Prep Schools, forecast that traditional pen and paper tests will be scrapped and replaced with online questions which get gradually harder if students are not being challenged. […]
By 2023, all UK exams will be completed using computers, according to a report from an independent education body.
David Hanson, chief executive of the Independent Association of Prep Schools, forecast that traditional pen and paper tests will be scrapped and replaced with online questions which get gradually harder if students are not being challenged.
Hanson will outline his predictions this week to headteachers at the association’s annual conference.
“I predict that in 10 years’ time maths, English and science will still be core subjects but technology will have been completely embraced and will be used extensively by a generation of teachers who grew up with it,” he will say on Friday.
“Assessment will be by online adaptive tests. All schools, including independent schools, will be required to benchmark and thereafter monitor and report on pupils’ progress and achievement using national standardised tests.”
In a sign of the times, the Cedars School of Excellence in Greenock, an independent school, began teaching all lessons using iPads in 2010, becoming, it is believed, the first in the world to do so.
“We still have about 750,0000 children in 600,000 homes who cannot access the internet via a computer from the bedroom,” she said. “You’re going to lose out if online exams become the norm a) if you’re poor and b) unlucky enough to go to a school that doesn’t pursue it [technology] as a priority.”
In his speech, Hanson will also say that school performance audits carried out remotely and based on the results of the online exams will replace inspections, except for the minority of schools that fall below expected performance.
