Teachers ‘nearly as bad as pupils for cheating’
Figures from OCR board reveals 2,300 malpractice cases involving leaking details of tests to pupils
Thousands of teachers have been caught cheating in exams, with figures showing they are nearly as bad as pupils but are not being disciplined for it. Nearly 2,300 malpractice offences were committed by teachers between 2012 and 2016, according to data obtained through Freedom Of Information requests to the OCR exam board. Of those found to have committed malpractice, more than half were flagged as providing “improper assistance” to pupils.
THOUSANDS of teachers have been caught cheating in exams as figures show they are nearly as bad as pupils but fail to be disciplined for it.
Nearly 2,300 malpractice offences were committed by teachers between 2012 and 2016, according to data obtained through the freedom of information requests to the OCR exam board. Of those found to have committed malpractice, more than half were flagged as providing “improper assistance” to pupils.
The disclosures come after a Daily Telegraph investigation last year uncovered an exam cheating scandal embroiling senior teachers at leading independent schools.
The scandal, which resulted in the Government ordering the exam regulator Ofqual to launch an inquiry, led to teachers at Eton and Winchester College being dismissed for leaking details of test papers to their pupils.
Mo Tanweer, the deputy headmaster at Eton, was dismissed for gross misconduct after he circulated questions from an forthcoming economics exam to his students.
At Winchester College, Laurence Wolff, the head of history of art, was forced to take early retirement for a similar offence.
Both men were employed as exam setters for Cambridge International, an exam board which provides A-level equivalent tests for a number of leading private schools.
Last night, Robert Halfon, chairman of the Commons education committee, said the findings were “deeply concerning” and showed the need for exam boards to publish their data on exam cheating. Mr Halfon, who is leading a parliamentary inquiry into the integrity of the exam system, added that OCR and others must become “fully transparent”.
He said that those found breaching the rules should be held accountable.
“These figures are exactly why my committee has had an inquiry into the integrity of the examinations system,” he told The Daily Telegraph.
“There seems to be a lack of awareness at best, complacency at worst, over the scale of this problem. There absolutely needs to be transparency from the exam boards.
“They need to be making this data available. It should not require FOI requests for this information to be made available to the public. At the very least the schools and places where cheating occurs should be reported regularly.”
While several exam boards and leading head teachers have played down the scale of the problem, MPS and experts in the sector have criticised the lack of transparency and questioned the intimate consumer relationship forged between the boards and schools.
The latest figures, obtained by The Sunday Times, show that 1,000 students had their exams or qualifications disqualified during the same period.
However, 581 teachers were handed warnings for breaches, while just 83 were suspended from exam roles. Prof Alan Smithers, the dean of education at the University of Buckingham, said: “Cheating in exams is the equivalent of taking drugs in athletics and the punishment [for teachers] should be commensurate.”
An OCR spokesman said the exam board took all cases of malpractice “very seriously” and worked to resolve issues “quickly and fairly”.
Meanwhile, Ofqual is understood to be on course to recommend a raft of reforms to how exams are set in its final report later this year. Among the proposals may be the introduction of “banking”, which would result in questions being randomised to prevent exam setters from knowing the full contents of the papers they help write.