Students should be allowed to use Google during tests says head of exam board

Mark Dawe, chief executive to the Oxford, Cambridge and RSA examinations board, has publicly stated that allowing Internet use during exams properly reflects the way students today learn, and how they will work in the future. 

He added that despite some of the obvious advantages to having this tool available to students during tests, the pupils will still need a foundation of knowledge to properly search for answers; they should also be limited in the amount of time they can use to conduct searches.

The Campaign for Real Education formally condemned the idea as “dumbing down.”

“Surely when they learn in the classroom, everyone uses Google if there is a question,” Dawe explained. “It is more about understanding what results you're seeing rather than keeping all of that knowledge in your head, because that's not how the modern world works.”

To further strengthen his point, Dawe compared his idea to the debate about whether to have books available during tests: “In reality you didn't have too much time (to consult the book) and you had to learn it anyway.” 

He added that some tests may allow Internet searches, while others will not, to present students with a balanced approach to education in the 21st century. 

“It's about understanding the tools they have got available and how to utilize them,” he explained on the Today program, the show on which he made these comments. “When we are asking a question where we know there's access to the internet, we could ask a different question — it's about the interpretation, the discussion.”

Chris McGovern, who works for the Campaign for Real Education, said:

“We have a crisis in standards in this country. 

“We are three years behind the Chinese, at the age of 15. 

“We have got universities running remedial courses. 

“We have got employers saying too many youngsters are unemployable.”

He finally concluded: “You can have an exam in how to use Google — that's not the same thing as having a history exam or a geography exam.

“We do have to test what children are carrying in their heads”.

Via BBC