Schools give top marks to online testing

About 40,000 pupils have had their IT skills tested online for the first time through a national project to assess schoolchildren's technical abilities.

The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) completed a pilot of its online e-assessment project last week. The statutory assessment will be extended to more than half-a-million year-nine students (aged 13 and 14) annually by 2008.

The QCA involved 500 secondary schools, and originally targeted 12,000 students during the four-week pilot.

Martin Ripley, head of e-strategy at the QCA, says that the positive response the organisation received from schools has resulted in a larger number of students taking part.

'Forty-thousand students is a clear indicator of the volume of enthusiasm and the ease with which schools are using the system,' he said.

Surbiton High School took part in the pilot and James Garnett, head of ICT at the school, says e-assessments help students use the right application for specific tasks. 'Pupils can think outside narrow confines and seek to find the right answers,' he said.

Schoolchildren sitting an e-assessment have to solve real-life problems in a virtual world.

Georgina Hinton, a year-nine pupil at Surbiton High School, says the system helps pupils to understand IT skills.

'It's a good idea; everyone has a foundation,' she said.

The QCA's pilot follows an earlier trial and an Office of Government Commerce (OGC) review of the initiative.

Plans for the QCA's £26m project passed through the OGC's fourth Gateway Review stage in March, which examined the scheme's readiness for service (Computing, 10 March).

The QCA's initial pilot ran last summer across 100 schools, to gauge training, infrastructure and development needs.

The organisation is continuing to roll out e-assessments at the rate of 100 schools a week.