{"id":365689,"date":"2025-08-22T22:05:17","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T22:05:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/365689\/"},"modified":"2025-08-22T22:05:17","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T22:05:17","slug":"a-levels-and-gcses-need-overhaul-to-keep-pace-with-generative-ai-experts-say-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/365689\/","title":{"rendered":"A-levels and GCSEs need overhaul to keep pace with generative AI, experts say | Education"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oral assessments, more security checks and speedier marking are all on the cards as generative artificial intelligence (AI) could transform exams for the next generation of students.<\/p>\n

As the 2025 exam season drew to a close with GCSE students picking up their results<\/a> on Thursday, after mostly sitting traditional pen and paper exams, AI is already changing the landscape.<\/p>\n

Exam preparation is undergoing a revolution, with students increasingly creating personal AI tutors, available around the clock to generate learning materials to suit individual needs that potentially lead to better results.<\/p>\n

\u201cUsing AI can give a student a much better understanding of a subject because they can ask those questions they wouldn\u2019t ask in class, or at odd hours, without being judged,\u201d said Dr Andrew Rogoyski of the Surrey Institute for People-Centred AI.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really took off this summer,\u201d said Sandra Leaton Gray, a professor of education futures at University College London\u2019s Institute of Education. \u201cSo they\u2019re able to talk to it about the marking frameworks that are in use and upload those, and then they\u2019re able to do sample answers on their own. And then they\u2019re able to say to the AI: \u2018How would you improve the answer?\u2019 It\u2019s like having a tireless tutor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Others suggest AI is developing so rapidly a totally new exam will be needed to test how effectively students are using it. Dr Thomas Lancaster, a computer scientist at Imperial College London specialising in the educational use of generative AI, academic integrity and student cheating, said: \u201cThis is becoming such a core digital skill now. I think an exam of this type is inevitable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lancaster warned AI would lead to new ways of cheating. \u201cI do think we\u2019ll need to see increased security checks for exams and more training for invigilators to help them to spot disallowed devices,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cCommunication devices now can be as small as concealed earpieces, and there are more dangers with AI-enabled smart glasses.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sir Ian Bauckham, the chief regulator of England\u2019s qualifications watchdog, Ofqual, warned of the risks AI posed to the use of extended writing coursework to assess a student\u2019s knowledge.<\/p>\n

In an interview with the Guardian, he raised concerns about the extended project qualification<\/a>, an independent research project students can undertake alongside their A-levels that is the equivalent of half an A-level.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s got a really important place that is valued and universities sometimes tell us that they value it too,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I wouldn\u2019t want to take precipitous action on it, but I am worried about the extent to which AI may be being used to support students in that qualification.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think anybody that wants to say we should move the exam system wholesale away from exams, where you can control the use of AI, to a space where it\u2019s much harder to do that, which is extended writing coursework, should probably do a reality check.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rogoyski echoed his concerns. He said: \u201cOur assumption that you can tell a student\u2019s mastery of a subject by asking them to write an essay is being fundamentally challenged, especially if they\u2019re doing that work unsupervised.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are likely to have to change exams to focus on testing their understanding of what has been written, whether by AI or human. This means vivas, or discussions, about examined topics.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also warned there are early signs of AI-dependency emerging as students start to use the technology routinely: \u201cThe risk is that they become dependent on the AI and lose their own abilities to analyse, write, and critique subjects,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

On the possible benefits of AI to the exam system, Jill Duffy, the chair of the Joint Council for Qualifications board of directors and the chief executive of the OCR awards body, said exam boards were looking at how AI could speed up and improve the quality of marking.<\/p>\n

One theory is GCSE and A-level results could be delivered within a month instead of two, thanks to AI speeding up marking. OCR is using AI in trials to turn handwritten answers into digital text to cut delays caused by poor handwriting. If successful, it could mean students are offered university places based on their qualifications rather than predicted grades.<\/p>\n

Duffy agreed more vivas and other forms of oral assessment were already being used in higher education. \u201cIf we\u2019re seeing it there, is that going to start to cross over into schools? We could see something like that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Lancaster added: \u201cOverall, exams are here to stay in some form, but that exam form may be rather different to what it looks like now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oral assessments, more security checks and speedier marking are all on the cards as generative artificial intelligence (AI)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365690,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[51,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-365689","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115074690147672280","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}