Exam board AQA sets out plans for digital exams
Exam board AQA has released a new report on digital exams, announcing that it the reading and listening components of its GCSE Italian and Polish will, subject to regulatory approval, be assessed digitally in 2026.
AQA is aiming to continue introducing further components in other subjects at GCSE and A-level, until at least one of the large entry subjects (eg GCSE English) is partly assessed digitally in 2030.
Students' devices will be offline in the exam hall; they will not be able to search for information on the internet, nor will they be able to access artificial intelligence tools.
paper-based exams continue to be one useful way of assessing students, AQA believes it's time to widen the range of media we use.
The case for moving to digital exams is strong, AQA says. Digital exams allow young people to use their digital skills; are better for the environment; are truer to the digital world people are growing up and working in; can help students with special educational needs; don't make students worry about handwriting bias.
Longer term, digital exams could be a more engaging way of assessing what a student knows, understands and can do. For example, for modern foreign language students, there could be interactive video and audio with conversations in parks, restaurants and town centres.
AQA's polling and focus groups with teachers, students and parents show that most people welcome the prospect of digital exams:
68% of young people surveyed agreed that digital exams would be better preparation for future work, education or training; 63% of 11-18 year-olds felt comfortable using a computer for longer than an hour – only 36% felt comfortable using pen and paper for more than an hour; and 68% of parents agreed that exams need to move with the times.
Colin Hughes, AQA's Chief Executive Officer, said: "Technology and change are two constants in education. After all, we went from quills to fountain pens to biros, and from scrolls to books. Moving to digital exams is the next step of this evolution.
"We cannot and should not change the way we conduct exams overnight. AQA has spent several years trialling and piloting digital exams and we will roll them out over many years. Our ambition is that students will sit a large-entry subject – that means, in our case, hundreds of thousands of simultaneous exams – digitally by 2030.
"In the meantime, we'll continue to talk to teachers, school leaders and exams officers about how they want to make these changes. The benefits are substantial."
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