Ofqual issues fines over English proficiency test that some candidates sat at home, A-level Chinese and GCSE English

One of the world’s biggest providers of educational services has been fined more than £2m for a range of serious breaches related to examination standards that could have affected tens of thousands of students.

Pearson, a FTSE 100-listed company, was hit by financial penalties of £750,000 for each of two cases and £505,000 for a third by Ofqual, the exams regulator. The cases concerned GCSE English language exams, A-level spoken Chinese and an online English proficiency test.

As the exam regulator consults about introducing onscreen exams amid complaints of hand fatigue, a young aspiring journalist goes head-to-head with a self-professed expert

This week it was reported that students could soon be sitting their end-of-year exams on laptops after pupils complained of hand fatigue, saying their muscles “are not strong enough”.

With Ofqual preparing to launch a public consultation on the introduction of onscreen exams, we decided to conduct a test of our own, pitting the Guardian columnist Zoe Williams, a seasoned hack of the pen-and-paper generation, against George Francis Lee, our gen-Z journalist in training.

Qualifications watchdog launches consultation amid complaints from pupils about writing fatigue in exams

Students could be sitting some of their GCSEs and A-levels on a laptop by the end of the decade, according to England’s qualifications watchdog.

Amid complaints from pupils of writing fatigue in exams because their hand muscles “are not strong enough”, Ofqual is launching a three-month public consultation about the introduction of onscreen assessments.