Detecting artificial intelligence in A-level coursework is getting “harder and harder”, making history and English among the subjects most vulnerable to cheating, the head of England’s exam regulator has warned.

Sir Ian Bauckham, the chief regulator of Ofqual, told The i Paper that supervised exams were “the most secure guarantee” of students’ work and that a move from paper to on-screen exams could hurt students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Speaking ahead of A-level results being published this week, he said students’ achievement would be similar this year compared to last year, when a record proportion of students received A and A* grades.

‘AI is getting so clever’

Bauckham’s remarks come after the Education Secretary criticised learning in England for being “dominated by pen and paper” and said she would make changes to the curriculum and assessment system so that it is “fit for the world of work”.

“We don’t communicate or convey ideas, do business or even work with a pen and paper in most other environments,” Lucy Powell wrote in . “Yet only pen and paper exams prevail. No wonder employers tell us young people aren’t work-ready.”

She also singled out computer science GCSEs for having “assessments that don’t involve using a computer”.

Bauckham defended the current exam system and said safeguards were needed to protect assessments from cheating.

“AI is getting so clever,” he said. “It’s also getting very clever at hiding itself, so it’s pretty difficult for old-fashioned plagiarism detection.

“When I say old-fashioned, [I mean] it was perfectly good two years ago, so it’s as old-fashioned as that. It’s getting harder and harder to build software that really can detect when a piece of work has been written by AI.”

He said it is easy for students to give AI a piece of their own writing and ask it to copy their style, including where they make habitual mistakes to “disguise” its usage.

Bauckham said subjects with extended writing coursework, particularly English and history, are considered most vulnerable to cheating.

Extended writing coursework makes up 20 per cent of the assessment for A-levels in English language, English literature, history and geography.

Other subjects that include written coursework are art and design, media studies, film studies, drama and theatre, design and technology, physical education and computer science.

Ofqual working on tackling AI

Bauckham said extended writing coursework is “quite bad for guaranteeing authenticity” of students’ work.

He said Ofqual and exam boards are working on safeguards to tackle the problem, which could include more detailed requirements for referencing sources, and more “checkpoints” where teachers review the coursework in stages and have more detailed discussions with students about their sources.

Teachers could emphasise the risks to students of lying in their ethics declarations, in which they sign a form stating they did not use AI, he said.

Another option could be to look for discrepancies where a student’s performance in the exam component is much worse than in the coursework.

Bauckham said there are “mechanisms” that can be put in place to reduce the likelihood of large-scale malpractice, but that Ofqual is considering scrapping extended writing coursework altogether.

On-screen vs paper exams

Responding to calls for pen-and-paper exams to be replaced with on-screen ones, Bauckham raised concerns about potential risks that could destabilise the exam system.

He pointed to India and Portugal as recent examples where poorly managed exam systems led to public unrest.

Portugal rolled out a digital marking system marred by technical failures, while numerous exams were leaked in India.

“The risks of moving fast are that we don’t manage to do it well, and we end up with a situation that we’ve seen in those other countries,” Bauckham said.

He said the introduction of digital exams also raises the “critical issue of fairness for everybody in the system”, saying some students have poorer access to technology at home than others.

“We just have to make sure… that we are not unduly disadvantaging people who are on the wrong side of the digital divide,” he said.

He warned that IT failures such as poor internet connections could mean an exam “doesn’t work”.

Asked about Powell’s comments, he said: “When it comes to assessing what [students] know… it has to be a system that will work and will work fairly for everybody, and will give you an accurate indication of the level of skills, knowledge and understanding that the young person has reached.”

The outlook for grades this year

Looking ahead to A-level results that will be published on Thursday, Bauckham said he expected a “picture of stability”, particularly for popular subjects like maths and psychology.

“We’re not expecting to see any significant differences in overall results patterns at national level in comparison with 2025,” he said.

Last year, the regulator faced accusations of grade inflation that Bauckham dismissed at the time, saying the increased proportion of top A-level grades was due to a stronger cohort than usual.

However, Bauckham said there may be changes this year in the attainment levels for courses with small cohorts, such as ancient Greek.