Ofqual has fined exam board Pearson more than £2 million in total
for serious breaches in 3 separate cases between 2019 and 2023
which collectively affected tens of thousands of students.
The financial penalties of £750,000 each for 2 of the cases, and
£505,000 for the other, are among the highest fines issued by
Ofqual, reflecting the seriousness of Pearson's failures.
The cases concerned:
-
GCSE English language 2.0 (1EN2) - £750,000
fine.
Pearson failed to identify and effectively manage a risk of
inconsistent grading standards between its GCSE English language
qualification and the new GCSE English language 2.0
qualification, despite Ofqual highlighting the risk in 2022 and
2023. When standards for Pearson GCSE English language 2.0 were
realigned with GCSE English language in summer 2024, students
received correct but unexpectedly lower results. This undermined
public confidence in those results and led to complaints to
Ofqual.
The alternative GCSE English language exam had been introduced by
Pearson in 2022 and marketed towards post-16 students who had not
achieved grade 4, including those taking re-sits. It had 23,165
student entries in 2023.
-
Pearson Edexcel GCE A level in Chinese (spoken
Mandarin/spoken Cantonese) - £505,000 fine.
Ofqual's review of assessments from 2019, 2022 and 2023
identified multiple issues with how questions were set, and
responses marked, that were inconsistent with requirements.
Pearson missed opportunities to resolve the issues after teachers
and others raised concerns. Around 12,000 students were affected,
particularly non-native Chinese speakers who were
disproportionately disadvantaged by the assessments being
inappropriately demanding for them.
-
Pearson PTE Academic Online (PTEA Online) English
language test - £750,000 fine.
The English proficiency test enables international students to
meet university entrance requirements. The online version, now
discontinued, enabled around 5% of candidates to take the test
online at home, rather than at a secure centre. In 2023,
malpractice involved other people sitting the secure test on the
student's behalf, avoiding the remote invigilation safeguards
Pearson had put in place. Although Pearson identified the
incident and revoked 9910 results affected, it admitted it should
have identified the malpractice sooner and reported it to Ofqual
earlier than it did.
Amanda Swann, Ofqual's Executive Director for Delivery, said:
These fines reflect the serious nature of Pearson's failures as
well as our commitment to protecting students' interests and
maintaining public confidence in our qualifications system.
Students must be able to trust that their results, and those of
their peers taking the same qualifications, accurately reflect
their performance, in line with appropriate
standards. Students' work must also be their own.
This action is necessary to deter Pearson and other awarding
organisations from similar failings in future.
Pearson has now been fined 7 times by Ofqual. The highest
financial penalty issued by Ofqual was in 2022 when Pearson was fined £1.2
million for failures with reviews of marking arrangements
between 2016 and 2019.
Ofqual's enforcement panel also took into account mitigating
factors in concluding that the 3 fines announced today were
appropriate for Pearson's breaches of its Conditions of
Recognition. These included Pearson accepting the breaches and
entering into settlement agreements.
Ofqual has today published 3 Final Notice documents, reflecting
the settlements agreed for each case.
Pearson: Notice of
monetary penalty and costs recovery - GCSE English
Pearson: Notice of
monetary penalty and costs recovery - A level Chinese
Pearson: Notice of
monetary penalty and costs recovery - PTE
Background information
Ofqual's Supporting compliance and
taking regulatory action guidance sets out how it will use
its powers to take regulatory action.
Previous cases and fines can be viewed in Regulatory actions and
interventions by Ofqual - GOV.UK.
