School exam cheats increase

Cheating in national exams has risen, reflecting the increasing pressure on pupils to do well at a time when the impetus to earn good grades has become more severe.

Exam boards found 4,415 cases of malpractice by candidates in GCSEs and A-Level subjects last year, 6 per cent higher than in 2008. The most common offence was bringing unauthorised material into an exam room, such as mobile phones.

There were also more than 1,000 cases of copying, collusion or plagiarism, according to the report by Ofqual, the qualifications watchdog.

Pupils aiming for the leading universities are under greater pressure than before to get extremely high grades at A-Level and GCSE. An FT survey of 22 top universities last year found 184 non-Oxbridge courses that will require triple-A at A-Level in 2010, an increase of 46 on 2009. Twenty years ago this requirement was considerably rarer.

Ofqual explained that the penalties for "malpractice" varied depending on the type of offence, "ranging from warnings and loss of marks to disqualification from units, components or qualifications". "For example, candidates who bring a mobile phone into an exams room but do not have their phone at their desk might receive a warning, whereas candidates found using a mobile phone during an exam might be disqualified from the unit or the qualification." The most common penalty imposed by exam boards on cheaters was to take away marks - which they did in 2,155 cases.

However, the proportion of exams for which penalties were applied because of cheating remained low at 0.03 per cent - although the proportion is slightly higher than in 2008.

Some education experts have argued that the problem of students trying to gain an edge by lobbying unfairly for "special consideration" is a much greater one. Exam boards approved 359,766 requests for special consideration in 2009. This is lower than in 2008 but believed by experts to be much higher than a generation ago. Exam boards argue that requests, which include concessions such as extra time because of an impairment, are granted only after robust assessment.

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