Laptops replace pen and paper as S'pore shifts towards electronic examinations - The Straits Times

SINGAPORE - Traditional pen-and-paper exams are gradually making way for electronic examinations, or examinations that are delivered through an online system.

In Singapore, e-exams for national examinations such as the General Certificate of Education (GCE) were first introduced in 2013 for selected Mother Tongue Language papers.

To date, 60 GCE examination papers are now in electronic mode. These e-exams are conducted in various modes, such as e-oral, e-written, computer-based practical, and e-coursework.

A spokesman for the Singapore Examinations and Assessment Board (SEAB) told The Straits Times that such exams “align the ways students apply and demonstrate their learning in national examinations with the developments in curriculum and pedagogy”.

He added: “(E-exams) support the development of competencies that students would need in their daily lives and the future workplace.”

The Ministry of Education (MOE) has identified a list of 21st-century competencies that will prepare students for the globalised world they live in.

Competencies such as critical and inventive thinking, said SEAB, are better assessed through e-exams through the use of multimedia, as compared with pen-and-paper examinations.

Also, in 2021, the introduction of the Personalised Digital Learning Programme ensured that every secondary school student owned a school-prescribed personal learning device (PLD).

This necessitated a shift in the way lessons are designed and enacted, so that students would make use of their PLDs in their classroom learning.

Each e-exam mode has innovative features that provide an engaging examination experience. For some examinations, it will also be easier for candidates to edit and organise their responses.

For example, this year’s GCE Normal Technical, or N(T), English Paper One assessment will be an e-exam. Candidates will type their responses for the situational and continuous writing tasks.

They can also make use of the editing features – cut, copy and paste functions – and not have to worry about untidy cancellations or illegible handwriting.

Furthermore, in the GCE A-level H2 Translation (Chinese) e-exam which was introduced in 2022, students can make use of the annotation functions – highlight, bold and underline – and editing tools to do text translation, error analysis and comparative criticism of different translated texts more effectively.

It mirrors real-life translation work and makes the assessment more authentic, said SEAB.

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