Malpractice and maladministration
What exam boards must do to prevent it, and how to report it.
Malpractice can affect both qualification standards and confidence in qualifications. It undermines the hard work of students, teachers, schools, and colleges, and we take it very seriously. For further information, please refer to JCQs Suspected Malpractice Policies and Procedures.
Even if there is no deliberate wrongdoing, poor practice or maladministration (for example, giving students the wrong exam papers) can also result in students being seriously disadvantaged.
Our rules for exam boards reflect how serious malpractice and maladministration can be. We require exam boards to do all they can to prevent malpractice and maladministration when developing, delivering and awarding regulated qualifications. However, it can happen and, where there are plausible suspicions or allegations, exam boards are required to find out whether malpractice or maladministration has happened. When exam boards become aware of possible malpractice or maladministration, they should do all they can to prevent (or where that isn’t possible minimise):
- any unfair impact on students
- any adverse impact on:
- their ability to develop, deliver and award the qualification
- the standard of the qualification
- public confidence in qualifications
We also require exam boards to:
- have (and comply with) written procedures for investigating malpractice and maladministration
- make sure investigators have no personal interest in the outcome of their investigations
- do all they can to keep schools’ and colleges’ arrangements for preventing and investigating malpractice and maladministration under review
- provide (on request) guidance to schools and colleges about how best to prevent, investigate and deal with malpractice and maladministration
- if malpractice or maladministration is found, do all they can to stop it happening again, and take proportionate action against those responsible
- inform schools, colleges and other exam boards that may be affected by any malpractice or maladministration
Exam boards check that schools and colleges are following their instructions, including through visits carried out by JCQ’s Centre Inspection Service (CIS). We require exam boards to have a sanctions policy that they apply when a school or college is found to have breached its requirements. Possible sanctions include additional monitoring visits, the deployment of exam board invigilators or preventing a school or college offering some or all of their qualifications. The JCQ publishes guidance setting out how exam boards investigate potential malpractice and the sanctions they may impose when malpractice is confirmed.
We will not normally be involved with the investigation. Where there is a finding of malpractice, if a school or college is not satisfied with the way an exam board has conducted any investigation or with any sanctions applied, it can appeal against the finding and/or the sanction applied on the ground that the incident was not dealt with in accordance with the published procedures. If school or college is dissatisfied with the response from the exam board, they can then complain to Ofqual. We will usually only consider a complaint once the exam board’s own complaints and appeals procedures have been exhausted.
Schools and colleges have an important role to play in tackling malpractice.
Exam boards rightly expect schools and colleges to take malpractice, and the risk of malpractice, seriously. They expect schools and colleges to have proper processes in place for investigating and dealing with allegations of malpractice. Exam boards will have their own rules for when and how exams and other assessments are conducted which schools and colleges must follow. Any breach of these rules can undermine the fair conduct of the assessments and the fair award of the qualifications and can result in the assessed work being rejected, the school or college being sanctioned by the exam board or both.
Similarly, schools and colleges must also comply with the instructions they are given by their exam boards to reduce the risk of errors and maladministration occurring, such as having two people present when exam papers are opened.
Schools and colleges should also comply with any instructions about the issuing of results. For example, they should not issue results before the embargo is lifted.
Schools and colleges (and those working for them) should report any evidence or suspicions of malpractice to the relevant exam board. Any errors or incidents of maladministration should also be reported as soon as they are discovered.
Concerns can also be reported to Ofqual under the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998. This is often known as whistleblowing. In certain circumstances, this can provide protection when a person discloses concerns about practice where they work.
For more information about whistleblowing:
- see the GOV.UK page on whistleblowing
- visit Protect who provide free, confidential whistleblowing advice
- read Ofqual’s whistleblowing policy
We will normally ask the appropriate exam boards to investigate concerns about schools and colleges.
The government has confirmed that it is fully committed to exams going ahead this summer and does not expect that to change except in the unlikely case of a public health emergency that prevents students being able physically to sit exams. However, there are contingency arrangements in place should exams not be able to go ahead as planned.
If the government decides exams cannot go ahead as planned due to the pandemic, students’ grades will instead be determined by their teachers, using teacher-assessed grades (TAGs). This will be similar to the arrangements in summer 2021.
We provided guidance for teachers on collecting evidence during the year that would be used to inform TAGs if exams cannot go ahead applies to GCSEs, AS and A levels, the Advanced Extension Award (AEA) and Project qualifications.
The guidance sets out that:
- students should be assessed in exam-like conditions wherever possible
- students must be told before each assessment that their performance in it would be used for a TAG if exams cannot go ahead – and wherever possible, this information should be given far enough in advance to allow students time to revise and prepare
- students should be told which parts of the subject content will be covered by each assessment, but should not be told the questions in advance or be able to predict the questions from information given to them
- ideally, the total time students spend in assessments should not be more than the total time required when taking exams for the relevant qualification
- the assessments should help students prepare for the summer exams
- students should not be given the opportunity to repeat an assessment
The same reasonable adjustments that will be made for disabled students taking exams in the summer should, where possible, be made for assessments taken during the year that could be used to inform TAGs. If it is only identified after an assessment that a student needs a reasonable adjustment, a teacher should allow the student to take a different, but equivalent, assessment with the reasonable adjustment in place. If it is not possible to arrange for a student to sit another assessment, the centre should take into account should they have to determine a TAG that the reasonable adjustment was not in place for the assessment.
A student should tell teachers before, or immediately after, the assessment about any illness, injury or other event that could not be prevented, that might have affected their performance in an assessment. If a teacher is satisfied that a student’s performance in an assessment was affected by an event outside their control at the time of, or immediately before, the assessment, the teacher should adjust their marking of the assessment.
Teachers shouldn’t adjust their marking because a student’s learning had been disrupted by the pandemic.
Teachers are not being asked to develop TAGs, and guidance on how to do so would only be published should exams not be able to go ahead as planned.
Schools and colleges were asked to collect evidence of their students’ performance that covers the breadth of content usually seen in the exams and the qualification’s assessment objectives. The guidance on this has always been clear that once schools and colleges have this evidence, they are not obliged to collect any more.