Cambridge University is seeking to scrap exams written with a pen and paper due to the deterioration of students’ handwriting.
A growing reliance on laptops has led to students’ writing becoming increasingly illegible, academics said.
The problem has become so bad the university is preparing to switch to examinations on laptops – ending 800 years of handwritten exams.
Dr Sarah Pearsall, a lecturer at the university’s history department, told The Telegraph: “As a faculty we have been concerned for years about the declining handwriting problem.
“There has definitely been a downward trend. It is difficult for both the students and the examiners as it is harder and harder to read these scripts.”
When examiners could not read scripts, they had to be transcribed centrally, meaning a growing number of students had to return to university during the summer period to read their answers aloud to administrators, she said.
The university has launched a review on the issue as part of its “digital education strategy” after piloting a typed exam in the History and Classics departments earlier in the year.
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