More Than 1,000 Pupils Penalised For Phones In GCSE And A-level Exams

Last year saw a significant increase in the number of students penalized for cheating during GCSE and A-level exams. Ofqual, the exam regulator for England, has revealed that most of these malpractices stemmed from mobile phones being smuggled inside exam halls. The regulator also noted that the number of teachers and school staff implicated in exam malpractices increased by over double, from 360 to 895, between 2016 to 2017. However, despite this 25% surge in cheating cases, the number of punishments meted out remained low at 0.015% of over 18 million exam entries.

The most common form of exam malpractice was the introduction of unauthorized materials, mainly mobile phones or other electronic communication devices, accounting for half of the penalties. 80% of these were related to the use of mobile phones, while plagiarism accounted for 17% of the cases. Usually, students caught cheating were warned or had their grades reduced, while 490 had their grades disqualified. Those found with phones typically lost more marks.

Ofqual cited a change in response by examination boards that offer A-levels and GCSEs as the main reason for the sharp increase in the number of teachers and other school and college staff involved in exam malpractice. For the first time, data also revealed that computing and maths examinations accounted for a third of all penalties. Pupils taking computing exams accounted for the majority of plagiarism cases. Ofqual put an end to computing coursework after news broke last year that assessment tasks for GCSE computing had been leaked and circulated online.

Despite the rise in student and staff malpractice, the number of schools and colleges being punished dropped significantly from 155 to 120. Of the 895 teachers and school staff caught cheating, 185 were required to undergo training, while 90 were barred from involvement in exams, and over 30% of the cases involved teachers giving “improper assistance” to exam candidates.

Wales recorded smaller numbers of pupils who were caught with mobile phones – up from 70 to 80. However, just 180 Welsh pupils received penalties, fewer than the 195 reported in 2015, with a similar proportion of 0.015% to that in England.