The chief regulator of Ofqual has “signalled” his “anxiety” to ministers about the use of artificial intelligence in “extended writing” coursework and has commissioned internal work on how to “close down” the risk.
Sir Ian Bauckham was quizzed by the Parliamentary education committee today.
Here’s what you need to know…
1. AI not good enough for ‘sole marking‘
Ofqual will publish research on the use of artificial intelligence in marking exams this week.
Bauckham told MPs “we don’t believe AI is yet ready to undertake sole marking of student work”.
That was because it still makes mistakes and is hard to challenge, he added.
But he said it can be used to “quality assure, detect for example unexpected patterns in examiners’ marking and so on, but not sole marking.”
Former chief regulator Jo Saxton warned in 2023 they wouldn’t “allow” AI to solely mark students’ work.
2. Internal work commissioned on coursework AI risk
Bauckham said he had “signalled my anxiety” to the Department for Education about the use of AI cheating in qualifications with extended writing coursework.
He said there is “relatively little” of this coursework, but highlighted history and English A-level, where 20 per cent of the qualification is extended writing.
“Part of the driver for extended writing coursework lies in the way the content itself is designed. That’s a matter for DfE.”
But he has commissioned a “significant piece of work internally at Ofqual to ascertain the extent to which this risk is being realised at the moment and what the options might be in any reform of those qualifications for closing down that risk and assuring ourselves of the integrity of these qualifications”.
He added: “I would not be being transparent if I didn’t say I am concerned about that, I visited a number of providers up and down the country, spoken to teachers and a number have raised this with me.”
Bauckham said there were some ways to reduce the risk of coursework malpractice, such as disclosures that “probe the extent to which the candidate may have accessed AI”.
3. More likely to be shorter exams than fewer exams
Bauckham described government’s pledge to cut 10 per cent of exam time on average as “sensible, rational… and also achievable”.
He said it would most likely see shorter exams in most cases, but there could be fewer exams.
Ofqual has been under pressure to publish detailed modelling that informed the curriculum review policy.
Pressed by Peter Swallow, MP for Bracknell, on whether they would release it, Bauckham said the evidence was “provided for the purposes of ministerial policy making so we wouldn’t routinely publish that information at an early stage”.
He added they will be consulting on “any proposals to do with reforming GCSEs and the evidence associated with those proposals will be published at that point”.
4. Seeking to ‘temper boards’ enthusiasm’ on digital exams
The regulator announced last month that it would allow exam boards to introduce up to two on-screen specifications for GCSEs and A-level qualifications with less than 100,000 entries per year.
Exam boards had announced their own plans to take some exams on-screen, but it did rely on Ofqual approval.
Bauckham said there had been “significant coverage of some exam boards’ enthusiasm in this space. It’s an enthusiasm we seek to temper.”
“So yes there is enthusiasm amongst the awarding body community but my job is not, obviously, as regulator to do what [they] want me to do. Quite the opposite, my job is to safeguard the examination system in the interests of students.”
He said there were practical concerns such whether schools had enough laptops or extension leads for chargers.
“It absolutely underpins why were first of all taking this in hand, because my view is we cannot allow on-screen specifications to begin to saturate the market in a way that is uncontrolled.”
No qualification can be an “experiment” and they will “only allow regulated qualifications to be used in schools if we have reached a very high bar of confidence if they won’t be design unfairly discriminate against students from less advantaged backgrounds.”
5. Ofqual probing whether Pearson broke rules on maths A-level
Bauckham was asked for an update on Pearson Edexcel’s approach to awarding A-level maths last year, following complaints that it replaced a paper with a version that missed swathes of content pupils had expected to cover.
“The conclusion we reached was that the examination taken together – paper 1, 2 and 3 – did give an accurate indication of the skills, knowledge and understanding of the content, so the grades we deemed to be reliable.
“However I was concerned about the anxiety that had been caused to students, so I asked my team to look hard at this and try to make a decision about whether Pearson had in any senses been non-compliant in that area or not.
“We’ve not quite yet finished that piece of work but when we do it will be published in the normal way.”
6. Boards didn’t like Bauckham’s new ‘rebuke’
Last year Ofqual awarded itself new powers to publicly “rebuke” rule-breaking exam boards where it is not serious enough to warrant a financial penalty.
Bauckham said they got “very sharp feedback” from awarding organisations who said “they would find it a very difficult thing to receive indeed”.
“It would give chief executives cause to have difficult conversations with their boards and in the cases of awarding organisations that are commercial entities with shares, it could have an impact on share price.
“So they didn’t like it very much, which gave me assurance that it might be effective.”
7. ‘Welcome’ conversation on new board for BSL GCSE
Schools Week reported how despite Ofqual publishing the rules to guide the design of the long-awaited British Sign Language GCSE, no exam boards had yet committed to creating it.
Michael Hanton, deputy chief regulator, said they don’t have the power to force an exam board to offer a qualification but “there is the opportunity for an awarding organisation to become recognised to offer a GCSE in this particular area”.
“That is a route that is open and we would welcome conversations about that.”
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