One of the world's largest education service providers has been ordered to pay more than £2 million in penalties for a series of serious failures in examination standards, incidents which potentially impacted tens of thousands of students across the UK.
Three Separate Cases Lead to Substantial Fines
The exams regulator, Ofqual, imposed financial penalties totalling £2,005,000 on FTSE 100-listed company Pearson. The fines relate to three distinct cases: £750,000 for an online English proficiency test, another £750,000 for GCSE English language exams, and £505,000 for A-level spoken Chinese assessments.
In the most notable case, concerning the PTE Academic Online Test in 2023, Pearson permitted approximately 5% of candidates to sit the exam from home instead of at a secure testing centre. This critical error allowed other individuals to potentially take the test on a student's behalf, bypassing the remote invigilation safeguards that were in place.
Although Pearson identified the malpractice and subsequently revoked 9,910 results, the company admitted to Ofqual that it should have detected and reported the issue much sooner.
Grading Inconsistencies and Inappropriate Demands
The breaches were not limited to online testing. The GCSE English language case centred on risks to consistent grading standards, threatening the fairness of results for a significant number of pupils.
Meanwhile, the A-level Chinese investigation uncovered multiple problems with how examination questions were set and marked. Ofqual concluded that these flaws made the assessments inappropriately demanding for students who were non-native speakers, putting them at an unfair disadvantage.
A Pattern of Failings and Regulatory Action
Amanda Swann, Ofqual's Executive Director for Delivery, stated that the substantial fines reflect the gravity of Pearson's failures. "Students must be able to trust that their results accurately reflect their performance," she said, emphasising the regulator's commitment to maintaining public confidence in the qualifications system. She added that the action was necessary to deter Pearson and other awarding organisations from similar failings in the future.
This is not the first time Pearson has faced such sanctions. The company has now been fined seven times by Ofqual, including a £1.2 million penalty in 2022 for failures in its reviews of marking arrangements between 2016 and 2019.
In a statement, Pearson accepted responsibility for the issues affecting GCE A-level Chinese, GCSE English Language 2.0, and the PTE Academic Online Test, which occurred at different times between 2019 and 2023. The company acknowledged that its actions "did not meet regulatory requirements or the high standards that learners and educators rightly expect from us." Pearson claims to have conducted comprehensive reviews and implemented robust improvements to its processes following each case.
