Exams are expensive and stressful. You would assume it would be human nature to put all effort into avoiding them but there always seems to be an urge by some people, who have sat them in the past and know they won’t in the future, to inflict the same experience on the next generation. In January, after much speculation and delay, the UK conceded to 2021 being the second year in a row where no end of year exams would take place in schools. Sadly for the UK, the Conservative government has spent a decade increasing the value of summative exams and reducing or removing all other forms of assessment. This has left the country, like others, wrestling with the challenge of inventing an alternative set of measures within an education sector no longer equipped to handle them.

Over the next decade, the students who gained access to university during the pandemic might be challenged on their worthiness to have achieved a place, but what if they perform essentially the same as regular cohorts? Many are asking if this will be the catalyst to challenge the expenditure on exams, in time, money, and stress. But others note that the…