AI coursework crackdown as teachers get tough on cheaters
The design of written coursework will face “far, far more scrutiny” in an effort to ensure students do not offload thinking to AI when completing the assessments, the head of England’s exams regulator is expected to say.
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Sir Ian Bauckham will give the warning during his speech at the Festival of Education in Wellington College, Berkshire, on Friday.
He will equate misusing or cheating using AI to fraud, and will say: “We cannot allow it.”
The chief regulator at Ofqual is expected to tell attendees: “As we design new qualifications for 16 to 18-year-olds, and reform existing ones, expect to see far, far more scrutiny of any proposals for written coursework.
“For the qualifications to be worth more than the paper they are written on, we cannot normalise the idea that AI-generated output is a substitute for genuine human endeavour.
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“And we cannot allow this idea to influence schools and colleges either.
“While AI – properly used – is supremely promising to help ease the burden on teachers, and to improve the quality of curriculum and teaching resources, offloading student thinking to AI does not develop the human mind.
“It leads ultimately to less learning, less satisfaction, less usefulness in the workplace and ultimately is a covert assault on the realisation of human potential.”
Sir Ian will reference University College London Law School and the US’s Princeton University moving to more in-person invigilated exams amid concerns about AI.
He will also say that while AI will have an important place in education, “we must remain in charge” and there must be legislation and regulation about what it can be allowed to do.