England’s biggest exam board has been fined £250,000 after teachers who drew up its assessments could have known which papers their pupils would be taking.
Pearson told regulator Ofqual that it did not follow “its own policies designed to ensure the confidentiality” of papers.
It also failed “to identify conflicts of interest” among 195 GCSE, A-level and BTEC examiners, who it employed “as tutors at schools where students sat” the assessments under the National Tutoring Programme.
Amanda Swann, Ofqual’s executive director for general qualifications, stated: “Our rules protect students taking regulated qualifications including GCSE, A Level and BTECs.
“We will take action when our rules are breached, and the interests of students are put at risk.”
Risk to exam ‘integrity’
Swann added there was “no evidence of any direct impact on students”. But Pearson “failed to guard against conflicts of interest and breaches of confidentiality and we intend to fine them accordingly”.
The incidents occurred in 2023. Six of them, Ofqual said, related to Pearson failing “to follow its own policies designed to ensure the confidentiality of live assessment materials, thereby creating a risk to the integrity of exams”.
In one case, “a teacher at one of Pearson’s centres was also a senior associate involved in the production of the final assessment for one of” its A-level papers.
The firm’s policy in such instances is to produce “multiple possible question papers” to ensure they do not know “with certainty” which of the exams will be used.
“Pearson confirmed that it did not follow this process for this GCE paper,” Ofqual said.
Papers remarked
Pearson “identified a similar failing in that multiple versions of an exam paper in another qualification were also not produced for summer 2023, despite the policy criterion being met”.
Multiple papers for four other qualifications were produced in a separate instance. But Pearson admitted “internal failures stemming from human error meant that the senior team could nonetheless have identified which version of the exam paper would be used”.
The exam board reported that 195 of its examiners in summer 2023 also “carried out tutoring in schools (under contract to Pearson) as part of the National Tutoring Programme”.
In all, they marked “7,244 exam responses by students at schools, where they had potential conflict of interest”. Any compromised papers were remarked by other examiners before grades were awarded.
“These individuals had not declared the tutoring activity in connection with their role as an examiner,” Ofqual said.
“No cross-reference or verification had been undertaken by Pearson which itself held all relevant information.”
Review launched
Ofqual stressed Pearson “co-operated fully” with its “enforcement process”. It admitted breaching “its conditions of recognition – which all awarding organisations are legally required to follow for regulated qualifications”.
Pearson subsequently agreed “to pay a monetary penalty in the sum of £250,000”, along with the regulator’s “reasonable legal costs”.
A spokesperson for the exam board said as soon it “identified the potential conflicts of interest in 2023 we notified Ofqual, took swift corrective action and resolved the issue”.
A “detailed review”, conducted alongside the regulator, found “no evidence of any adverse impact on students or schools and colleges”.
“While these events took place following a period of unprecedented disruption due to the pandemic, we acknowledge that established processes were not followed,” they continued.
“We have updated our systems and continue to invest in enhancing and automating our processes to improve controls and reduce risk.”
Correction: This article was amended shortly after publication to say teachers ‘could have known’ which papers would be taken
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