Preventing a Future Incident where GCE Examination Scripts are Lost or Damaged

Dr Intan Azura Mokhtar asked the Minister for Education what are the Ministry's plans in ensuring the safety and integrity of our GCE examination scripts that are sent to the United Kingdom or other overseas marking centres.

Prof Lim Sun Sun asked the Minister for Education whether the Ministry has considered having the GCE "O" and "A" Level exams be e-exams where students key in answers via the computer, or to have written answer scripts be scanned and graded electronically so as to avoid situations of loss or tampering.

Mr Dennis Tan Lip Fong asked the Minister for Education (a) what is the timeline for the Ministry's plans to introduce electronic marking of GCE "O" and "A" Level examination scripts and whether the plans will be brought forward; (b) what action is the Ministry taking to prevent a recurrence of stolen or lost scripts including any mitigation action to be taken now pending any change of marking methods in future.

Miss Cheng Li Hui asked the Minister for Education with regard to GCE "N", "O" and "A" Levels examinations (a) whether examination scripts of all subjects will be scanned, digitalised and marked onscreen by the end of 2019 or will some subjects be exempted; (b) whether any overseas examination boards have conducted e-exams for examinations of similar level; (c) whether the Ministry has conducted trials or is conducting trials for holding e-exams for some subjects; and (d) whether schools and students are currently equipped to conduct and complete examinations digitally.

I also note that Mr Murali Pillai1 has filed a similar question on this issue for the next Sitting, so I hope my answer today will also address the Member's question.

MOE and the Singapore Examinations and Assessment Board (SEAB) decide on the standards and the award of grades for our national examinations. At the same time, we engage Cambridge Assessment to develop and mark our GCE "N", "O", "A" Level examinations because they have strong global expertise and experience in these areas.

This arrangement has worked well for many years. Each year, there are about 1.1 million answer scripts generated in the GCE Level examinations. Three hundred thousand answer scripts are marked locally in Singapore while 800,000 answer scripts are marked by Cambridge Assessment. Cambridge Assessment in turn taps on about 2,200 professors and experienced educators from universities and higher institutions to mark the scripts.

Therefore, if we were to mark all the scripts locally, it requires a very substantial amount of highly qualified resources. As these are required during the school vacation period, we need to be mindful too about the workload and well-being of our teachers if all subjects are to be marked locally, and also the tight timeline between the examinations and the release of results.

Over the years, Cambridge Assessment has also taken their role very professionally and seriously. For example, following the recent "O" Level Additional Mathematics incident, Cambridge Assessment has reinforced the instructions given to their examiners on the handling and movement of scripts. The Examiner concerned will also not be engaged to mark scripts in future; it cannot be helped. Overall, this collaboration between MOE and Cambridge Assessment continues to be useful and necessary.

The next question then is whether we can improve the situation by marking the scripts electronically, to ensure the safety and integrity of the scripts, and prevent future losses.

In fact, since 2015 and before the recent incidents, SEAB and Cambridge Assessment have been working closely on a planned move to transit the distribution and marking of hardcopy GCE Level answer scripts to on-screen marking.

There are many professional advantages: tabulation of scores become much faster and efficient; there is no need to handle voluminous physical scripts; we can readily generate data to study how students perform in various papers, sections, or even questions, which will help us improve instructions and teaching.

Given the large number of answer scripts, the implementation of on-screen marking was carried out in phases. In 2017, we implemented this for GCE "N" Level examinations. In 2018 last year, this was extended to some GCE "O" Level examinations. Today, close to 65% of all GCE Level written scripts were marked on-screen already. By the end of this year, we are on track to mark on-screen almost all of GCE Level written scripts. From 2020, locally developed examination papers, namely GCE Normal (Technical) Level Basic Mother Tongue Language and "O" Level Literature in Mother Tongue Language, will be marked on-screen and more local papers will be included over the subsequent few years.

There are some examination papers that are not suitable for on-screen marking. For example, Science Practical examination scripts cannot be marked on-screen as these answer scripts may be contaminated with chemicals which makes them unsuitable for scanning. Other examinations like drama or art are obviously also not suitable for on-screen marking.

Members have also asked if we could go beyond on-screen marking to conduct electronic-examinations, on-screen examinations.

There are a few examination boards that have implemented e-examinations, for example, the SAT test by US College Board for college admission. The approach in Singapore is to use e-examinations when there is clear benefit over paper-based tests.

For example, SEAB has already implemented e-oral exams across all levels for Mother Tongue Language subjects. We use video clips to set the context, and that enables a richer and more meaningful interaction compared to just showing a picture, which was what we went through, probably. This will be extended to the GCE "N" Level English in 2019 and "O" Level English in 2020.

We have introduced computer-based writing examination as a pilot in a few subjects, such as the GCE "O" and "A" Level Mother Tongue Language Syllabus B's Paper 1 and GCE "A" Level H2 Mother Tongue Language and Literature. So far the feedback has been positive as the candidates found the e-examination more engaging and authentic.

It is possible that in time to come, more written examinations can be administered on screen as well. Students can more readily cut and paste, edit their essays, move paragraphs around. They can be asked to respond to an email, write a blog or a social media post, all these better reflect real life situations that students will go through later in life.

But we are still some time away from that future. We need to take into account the readiness of schools and students. More importantly, notwithstanding the high computer penetration rate amongst our population, we should not inadvertently disadvantage students who may not be exposed to computers as much as others. Ideally, e-examinations needs to be aligned to the schools’ use of technology in teaching and learning.

Let me conclude, even as MOE, SEAB and Cambridge Assessment work towards on-screen marking and e-examinations, let me emphasis that every system has risks. Going electronic will eliminate the risk of lost scripts, but new risks associated with electronic data will surface. So, whatever system we adopt in future, we need to study the pros and cons carefully, proceed methodically, identify and ensure that risks are managed and mitigated to the greatest extent possible.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank the Minister for the assurance of the steps that will be taken to ensure the integrity and security of our Cambridge exam papers. While we move towards more of e-examinations and online marking, I think that will take several years. Will we consider doing entirely all of our GCE marking locally? The Minister mentioned that, yes, it will require a lot more markers and teachers, but I think we do have the capability here and would it not be easier to fly in some of the markers and auditors from Cambridge to audit the marking, rather than leaving our papers overseas where our exam papers have been taken onboard trains and that is why they were lost. Because when we do marking here, even for the PSLE papers, papers are not removed from the marking centres at all.

The consideration is a practical one. As I mentioned, Cambridge Assessment hired 2,200 markers. We have the capability to do all the markings locally. I am very confident of that. But considering that between examinations and release of results, it is of a certain time frame, 2,200 additional markers are required. So, while you may save time transporting the scripts, the amount of extra resources required is huge. And I am quite mindful of the workload of teachers especially during vacation. We need to turnaround this in a very short time. So, on balance, the collaboration with Cambridge Assessment has been working well, not withstanding this couple of incidents. They take their role very professionally. Even as we move to e-marking, this is a collaboration that, on the whole, logistically, taking into account the resources and costs required, it is still worthwhile for us to do so.

I thank the Minister for his answers. Just one supplementary question. Pending any future changes to the marking method and the examination method, since the last incident, have any new measures been taken to improve the transportation and delivery of the scripts to UK and back to Singapore. Thank you.

The protocol is all there, that once a marker has scripts in their hands, they are not supposed to leave it behind, and I think this is what happened in this particular incident. A bag was left behind and someone mistook the bag and he lost 32 scripts. Cambridge Assessment took this very seriously. It is a very unfortunate lapse. They have since tightened the instructions, conveyed to all the markers. The marker who was involved, he would not be engaged anymore. I think with their efforts and constant reminders, we can mitigate such risks to the minimum extend possible.

Just one more question. Maybe not quite directly related to these current questions that you are managing right now. Just looking at the potential risks of such summative assessment formats such as the GCE exams, would we consider, going forward, to minimise the dependence on such summative assessment formats and look at more at how we can balance such summative exams with students' portfolios for instance. Because for the students whose exams papers are missing, they get a certain prorated grade which they feel that sometimes it is fair, sometimes it is not quite fair. But if they have a student portfolio, they know that it is their work, built up over time, that they can depend on for admission to the next entry level in their education journey.

It is a question about summative versus formative assessment. If we have more formative assessments, more regular tests, there is actually more risks of losing scripts. But, I think it is a valid question on the direction that education is going. Given our system today, summative assessments will still play a big role. Because parents and students depend a lot on PSLE for allocation of places in Secondary schools, and from Secondary schools moving to JC or Polytechnic. But, I think what we ought to refine is at the admission level. That beyond looking at the summative test result, can we look at portfolio, as the Member mentioned, performances in other areas outside of academic. So, DSA scheme, EAE schemes that we had introduced and refined over the years, all these will help towards the move away from over-relying on summative tests.

I thank the Minister for his reply and I appreciate his concern for the workload of his staff and the teachers. At the Autonomous Universities, we have to complete all our marking locally within a very short span of time as well and it is a very stressful period for all of the Faculty. But I wonder if the Ministry could commit, for example, to studying this issue of the costs of arranging for all of the marking locally. What would be the cost implications of doing that versus the current arrangement with Cambridge Assessment. The reason why I asked this is, I think there should be no questions internationally about the credibility of our examination system if it were to be done all locally. I think Singapore has established a good reputation in that regard and I am confident that if we were to do it locally, we should have no issues with the reputation of students' credentials. Thank you.

A couple of points. First, the question may well be moot because by the end of this year, we will have substantially moved everything to electronic marking. So, the whole concern about transport of scripts which really underpins this concern, will not arise. But as I mentioned earlier, moving away from scripts, you will eliminate the risks of losing scripts but moving to electronic marking, a new set of risks will surface.

I think the deeper question is this collaboration with Cambridge Assessment. I fully agree with the Member that Singapore has a good reputation in education, there is high regard internationally for our education system. We are in a good position to do this ourselves and harness the resources to mark the papers, set the questions. But I think we are where we are too because of a certain earnestness to learn from different systems around the world and to work with different credible, reputable systems around the world. And this approach led us to working with Cambridge. Many, many years of working with them, Cambridge helped us, raised us to this level of international repute. So, I think it is a collaboration that is still worthwhile keeping while mitigating the risks of lost scripts.