Cambridge University is mulling scrapping written exams as authorities have to deal with increasing illegible handwriting of students.
The top varsity may end its 800-year-old tradition of hand-written exams and allow laptops to replace pen and paper for exams, according to Guardian.
As students increasingly rely on laptops and other electronic gadgets, academics say students are losing the ability to write by hand. Sarah Pearsall, a senior lecturer at Cambridge’s history faculty, told the Daily Telegraph: “Fifteen or 20 years ago, students routinely wrote by hand several hours a day, but now they write virtually nothing by hand except exams... It is difficult for both the students and the examiners as it is harder and harder to read these scripts.” She said handwriting was becoming a “lost art”.
Cambridge already allows students who struggle to write by hand or need extra time in exams to use laptops. But now it may be made available to other students as well as part of the university's Digital Strategy for Education programme that aims to “introduce technology that supports teaching and learning”.
A Cambridge University spokesman said the review was ordered after “students raised concerns that they rarely handwrite during their studies”.
A student told MailOnline: “I think being able to go back and change your essay — which you can’t do when writing- would make things harder as people would run out of time trying to create the perfect answer.”
Ms Pearsall said sometimes examiners could not read the answer scripts. They had to be transcribed, meaning students had to return to the university during the summer period to read their answers aloud to administrators, she said.
