IB examiners’ plans to clamp down on ‘time zone cheats’ will fail: Hong Kong expert, pupils
- Ex-Examinations and Assessment Authority manager Hans Yeung says start time changes and supervision period will make little difference
A Hong Kong education expert and pupils have raised doubts about new rules to be imposed on International Baccalaureate (IB) exams and insisted they would fail to clamp down on “time zone cheating”.
They predicted it would place extra burdens on schools and cause frustration among candidates for the exams.
They spoke out after IB authorities announced that November exam candidates would be supervised for at least two hours after the assessments and test start times in some schools would be adjusted to prevent time zone-based cheating.
“If a student has a single exam scheduled for one hour, they must still be supervised for a minimum of two hours … whether it’s in the exam venue or another dedicated supervision space in the school,” the organisation said on its website.
Hans Yeung Wing-yu, a former assessment development manager for history, who worked at the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority for 15 years, said the new rules were “caught between two stools”.
“The two-hour supervision period and adjusting test start times by just 30 minutes to an hour serve little purpose, as some regions have time differences of more than two hours,” he said.
