Official Statistics
Malpractice in GCSE, AS and A level: summer 2023 exam series
Number of cases of malpractice for GCSE, AS and A level in the summer exam series.
Applies to England
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Key headlines
The key headlines for cases of malpractice for which a penalty was issued (proven cases of malpractice), in GCSE, AS and A level qualifications for the summer 2023 exam series were:
- The number of proven cases of malpractice involving students has increased compared to the previous year. There were 4,895 cases of malpractice involving students in 2023, up from 4,105 in 2022, from almost 17 million GCSE, AS and A level entries (at component level) in both years.
- For student malpractice, 44.5% of all cases involved mobile phone and other communication device offences. There were 2,180 cases with penalties for this type of offence in 2023, compared with 1,825 (44.5%) in 2022.
- The number of cases of malpractice involving school or college staff decreased compared to the previous year. 220 cases of malpractice included members of staff in 2023, down from 240 in 2022. Only a small proportion of the total number of staff in England (over 360,000 full time equivalent teachers and support staff in state funded secondary schools) were involved in malpractice cases.
- There were 50 cases of school or college level malpractice in 2023, down from 55 in 2022.
Updates to this page
Published 14 December 2023Last updated 19 November 2024 + show all updates
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Small corrections made to column titles in tables 7 and 8 within the data tables, made ahead of the summer 2024 release. This does not affect any figures given in the main report.
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First published.