Education CommitteeFurther written evidence submitted by Pearson (Annex A)

Code of Conduct for Assessment Associates

All senior examiners are required to abide by a Code of Conduct (attached). This includes the provision that Pearson will ensure that “the writer of the assessment materials is never the main author of a textbook and vice versa.”

Further, our Examiners’ Current Terms and Conditions (Attached with Relevant Excerpts Highlighted) State that:

Assessment Associates (examiners) may be authors but they may not state which awarding organisation they are associated with or what their position is. (5.4 and 5.4.1 relevant sections).

Further, they may provide private tuition, training or guidance to students and teachers provided that the performance of such services does not or is not likely to result in a conflict of interest between the performance of their services as an Assessment Associate for Edexcel, and their services for the other party or parties. However, they may not provide any form of private tuition, training or guidance to any students and/or learners in respect of any units whose pre-published content they have had sight of, or input on. (4.2 relevant section).

If working for a third party training provider examiners may not state which awarding organisation they are associated with or what their position is. (5.4 and 5.4.1 relevant sections).

Examiners are required to inform Edexcel which school or college they teach at so that we can prevent them from marking work from their own students and monitor this as a potential conflict of interest. (4.1 and 4.1.2 relevant sections).

Changes Effective in 2012

In March 2011 we informed all examiners that examiners who have been involved with the development of examination papers will no longer be permitted to offer students any training or advice whatsoever for those examinations.

This change was introduced to all new AA appointments from 1 March 2011 but we supplied a 12 month grace period for existing AAs who had already made commitments to deliver training up until end of March 2012.

In addition, we are establishing a policy whereby examiners who are writing question papers may not write textbooks. We are piloting different approaches to this issue on new commissions with a view to developing new guidance as soon as possible.

February 2012