Ofqual fines Pearson £2 million for rule breaches

Ofqual has fined exam board Pearson more than £2 million in total for serious breaches in three separate cases between 2019 and 2023 which collectively affected tens of thousands of students.

The financial penalties of £750,000 each for two 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 where 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.

Another case was Pearson Edexcel GCE A level in Chinese (spoken Mandarin/spoken Cantonese). 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.

The third case was Pearson PTE Academic Online (PTEA Online) English language test. 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."