Fire evacuations, sudden illness, disruptive behaviour and urgent toilet trips can all upset the silence of an exam hall and require an instant response.
But what happens if there isn’t an adult in the room to provide it?
Last month, in an exclusive interview with Tes, Colin Hughes, the chief executive of exam board AQA, advocated for a gradual shift to digital invigilation using AI-enhanced cameras.
It was a major announcement from England’s biggest exam board and one that inevitably raised eyebrows.
Hughes said the system - whereby AI-enhanced cameras flag up concerns to human invigilators watching via a monitor - could bring “enormous gains” compared with current human invigilation.
In practice, though, could this really work?
AI exam invigilation
AQA foresees cost savings for schools by allowing students to sit in multiple smaller rooms during exams (known as “rooming”), all invigilated via an AI-camera feed, requiring fewer invigilators.
But it is hard to see how such a system would work in practice, says Jugjit Chima, CEO of the National Association of Examination Officers, who oversees more than 100,000 invigilators.
He supports the integration of technology and agrees that some centres face cost and hiring pressures, but he lists several situations in which humans are vital.
These include fire evacuations, pre-exam registers, sudden illness, disruptive behaviour, ensuring that students accurately fill out exam cover sheets, requests for more paper and toilet breaks.
For all of these, “you would need a human” in the room, Chima says. Removing humans is “where the cost saving would be” so he “struggles to see” how costs could come down.
Would candidates who are left waiting with their arm in the air for an AI camera to flag this to a human monitor get time back at the end of their exam?
“I’m not saying that this couldn’t work, but it really needs to be thought about,” Chima says.
Ultimately, he questions whether the benefits would outweigh the risk of “putting the integrity of the exam system in jeopardy”.
Sarah Hannafin, head of policy at the NAHT school leaders’ union, also has doubts. Digital invigilation “might” be developed to cooperate with human invigilators for GCSEs and A levels, she says, “but not to replace them”. She notes that invigilators are “crucial to the integrity of exams…. [and] do a lot more than simply looking for suspicious behaviour”.
A solution without a problem?
Arguably, the most high-profile indicator of exam reliability is ensuring that cheating doesn’t happen - and where it does, that it is reported and punished.
According to Hughes, AI-enhanced cameras would be better at tackling malpractice than humans because “the camera never has its back turned”.
How much of a problem is cheating, though?
“They’re very, very small numbers compared to the number of exams that take place,” says Chima, adding that the main source of cheating is mobile phones, with much of this happening in toilet cubicles so it wouldn’t get picked up by AI cameras.
There were 5,190 cases of student malpractice across GCSE, AS and A level - out of more than 17,610,000 exam entries. The figure represented a rise from 4,900 in 2023.
Some 41.4 per cent of malpractice cases last year involved mobile phones and other communication devices.
Students with SEND ‘need a reassuring presence’
Hughes said that digital invigilation could help to ease the pressure on schools facing growing requests for access arrangements from students with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
But Sharon Eden, exams officer and computing teacher at Thames Valley School, part of Liberty Academy Trust, argues that cutting human invigilators could be detrimental to students with SEND.
“While digital invigilation might have benefits in some contexts, I believe it’s essential to recognise that for SEND students in particular, human connection and a structured, reassuring presence can be critical to helping them perform at their best,” she says.
Eden, whose special school focuses on autistic children, adds: “The presence of a familiar, visible person during exams can make a significant difference in helping to reduce anxiety and maintain a calm environment.”
And Chima argues that large-scale “rooming” brings its own practical problems because of the requirement for a 1.25 metre space between the centre of desks.
Most classrooms would probably only accommodate between 20 and 30 candidates due to this rule, he says.
All this raises further questions: how many classrooms would schools set aside for “rooming”? How many rooms could one invigilator monitor via an AI-camera feed? If another invigilator was required in each room to deal with “hand in the air” issues, would “rooming” require more, not fewer, invigilators? And would students with SEND receive worse support under the system?
Lessons from remote invigilation
Schools would want to know the “practicalities” of how digital invigilation would work to address such questions, says Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders.
One potential template to learn from is remote invigilation.
While it is available in England as an access arrangement, the numbers using it are tiny - just 25 requests were approved in , across GCSEs and AS and A levels.
However, remote invigilation is commonplace internationally.
Pearson, for example, it for 17 iGCSEs. One invigilator is allocated to up to two students who cannot see or hear the invigilator but can communicate with them via a chat box. The invigilator can see and hear candidates throughout the set-up, exam and submission process using three cameras and audio sharing.
Hayley White, Pearson’s vice-president of assessment, standards and services, says the board is working internationally with around 1,000 students at 10 virtual schools, who will take around 8,000 exams this summer.
AI is not involved yet, but “in time” it could enhance human invigilation, not replace it, she says, adding that she “can’t foresee where humans aren’t…controlling such a high-stakes moment”.
Remote invigilation was designed to help students and schools tackle geographic inequalities - where students cannot travel to exam centres - and to help students with SEND.
For students likely to use these technologies, “what they need is more support, not less”, White says, echoing Eden.
Nonetheless, she would like to see such technologies become more readily available and emphasises their life-changing benefits, recalling a case where a student in a war zone had to stop their remotely invigilated exam because of an air-raid siren.
“They asked to continue with their exam [once the air raid was over] and our invigilator checked they were OK… and that they really wanted to. And that was all because of this service… because I don’t know how else they would be able to [sit the exam]. How would they get to an exam centre [in a war zone]?”
Compliance questions
While such a situation may seem a long way from English schools and AQA has stressed that any rollout of digital invigilation would be “gradual”, the technology is already there, as Hughes explained.
With the government as keen as it is to embrace AI, might digital invigilation be launched sooner rather than later?
Exams regulator Ofqual, stating its to the use of AI in remote invigilation, says that the “use of AI as a sole form of remote invigilator for student work is unlikely to be compliant” with its regulations.
It adds that it “will keep this position under review”. The regulator previously told Tes that it will “consider all proposals for innovation” from a perspective of ensuring that qualification standards and fairness are maintained.
AQA CEO Colin Hughes said: “Digital invigilation is already used extensively, particularly in the VTQ [vocational and technical qualifications] space. No one is suggesting that humans are removed entirely from the process. Indeed, what we’re saying is that human invigilation could be improved, not removed.
“Having said that, we welcome the discussion this has stimulated and look forward to conversations about how best to implement those improvements.”
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