Writing is on the wall for exams as Cambridge considers allowing laptops

Tutors complain that handwriting is becoming such a lost art that many exam papers are illegible

CAMBRIDGE University is considering scrapping compulsory written exams and allowing students to use laptops instead, after tutors complained that students’ handwriting is becoming illegible.

Academics say that the move, which would bring an end to more than 800 years of tradition, has come about because students rely too heavily on laptops in lectures, and are losing the ability to write by hand.

The university has now launched a consultation on the topic as part of its “digital education strategy”, having already piloted an exam typing scheme in the history and classics faculties earlier this year. Dr Sarah Pearsall, a senior lecturer at Cambridge’s Faculty of History, said that handwriting is becoming a “lost art” among the current student generation.

“Students write virtually nothing by hand except exams,” she told The Daily Telegraph. “As a faculty we have been concerned for years about the declining handwriting problem… it is harder and harder to read these scripts.”

Dr Pearsall added that students with illegible writing are forced to come back to their college during the summer holidays to read out their answers aloud out in the presence of two university administrators.

She said it is “extraordinarily commendable” that the university is considering reforms to its exam practices, but others criticised the move.

Tracey Trussell, a handwriting expert at the British Institute of Graphologists, urged Cambridge to “make sure that students continue to write by hand, particularly in lectures”.

She said that writing by hand “improves memory” and “equates to a higher rate of comprehension, understanding, and information retention”.

Sir Anthony Seldon, vice-chancellor of the University of Buckingham, said it is “inevitable” that universities will move to computers.

“Handwriting is very significantly in decline. We have to accept the reality – this is the way the vast majority of students have been brought up,” he said.

“The young people taking their finals at Cambridge learnt how to express themselves at the beginning of this century – they type naturally. Handwriting has become an optional, not a necessary, part of education.”

“There simply isn’t the same time in the curriculum devoted to learning elegant, beautiful, handwriting. Life is so quick now, it’s as if everybody writes as if they are a doctor writing a prescription.”

Sir Anthony added that handwriting is “not necessary for great thought, great English, or great intelligence.

“Some of our finest wordsmiths in England today write using laptops.”