More pupils than ever cheat at school exams

Record numbers of pupils are cheating in exams and hundreds are being helped by their teachers. Figures from the exam boards show 3,600 teenagers were caught breaking the rules last year, a 9 per cent rise on the previous year, with many of the offences blamed on schools' anxiety to preserve their rankings in exam league tables.

Record numbers of pupils are cheating in exams and hundreds are being helped by their teachers. Figures from the exam boards show 3,600 teenagers were caught breaking the rules last year, a 9 per cent rise on the previous year, with many of the offences blamed on schools' anxiety to preserve their rankings in exam league tables.

The most common offence was taking a mobile phone into GCSEs or A-levels, with pupils being caught texting answers to each other during the exams.

Another offence, highlighted by the exam board Edexcel, was submitting "offensive scripts", students telling examiners in explicit language what they could do with their questions.

A breakdown of the figures shows 2,500 cases were serious enough for students to be docked marks for cheating, or even disqualified from the exam. Exam board officials also warned that teachers can be barred from invigilating for life if they were caught helping students cheat.

The most recent severe penalty was a ban for two years on a teacher who left the students alone in the exam lecture hall for half an hour while he went out to complete other work. One board, the Oxford and Cambridge and Royal Society of Arts (OCR), said the number of penalties imposed on pupils for cheating had risen by 12 per cent in a year to 1,275, including 516 in collusion with teachers. At the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA), the numbers rose 3 per cent to 1,533. Edexcel issued 847 exam penalties, a 16 per cent rise on 2003.

The five most common offences were: taking a mobile telephone into exams, colluding over coursework, disrupting exams, taking books or notes into the exam room and plagiarism.

Exam boards blamed increased pressure on schools to perform well for the rise, but said increased vigilance had led to more pupils being caught. One official said: "It's the league tables, the league tables and the league tables."

On mobile telephones, he added: "They are prohibited from the exam room but sometimes pupils aren't aware they've got them on them. They're just like another item of clothing like socks. They put them in their pockets in the morning and forget about them."

Margaret Morrissey, spokeswoman for the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations, added: "It is wrong but it is happening and it's understandable. I just wish one of the politicians would say we could cut the amount of tests we give our children."

But she added: "We, as parents, are not getting a very fair view of what our children can and can't achieve. It may be very comforting to have done very well at school but when they get into the world of work if they can't actually do what their exam results say they can they're going to be in big trouble."

Mrs Morrissey said she agreed that the pressure of doing well in league tables contributed to the problem of cheating. A spokesman for the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, the Government's exams watchdog, said: "The simple message is 'don't cheat'. If students cheat, they will be punished."

Yesterday's exam board figures coincide with evidence that plagiarism is on the increase among university students. A BBC investigation for the Radio 4 programme Brains for Sale revealed that more students were buying essays online.

The head of one of the firms selling coursework to students admitted during the programme that her work "belittles the whole education system". Dorit Chomer, said she sold between 500 and 1,000 essays a week, mainly to overseas students studying in the UK. Jude Carroll, of Oxford Brookes University, who is an expert on plagiarism prevention, said a US study had found 43 per cent of students cutting and pasting material from the internet without supplying attribution. She said the figure was likely to be similar in the UK.

The five most common offences