Cambridge University is considering letting students take exams on laptops and iPads because they rarely use the lost art of handwriting during their studies.

Students who struggle to write by hand or need extra time in exams are already allowed to use laptops- but this could soon become widespread rather than exceptional.

The University’s review is part of its Digital Strategy for Education, which aims to ‘introduce technology that supports teaching and learning’.

Academicians says that the move, which would bring an end to more than 800 years of tradition has come about because students rely too heavily on laptops in lectures, and are losing the ability to write by hand.

University has already piloted an exam typing scheme in the History and Classics faculties earlier this year.

Dr. Sarah Pearsall, a senior lecturer at Cambridge’s History Faculty who was  

involved with the pilot earlier this year said that handwriting is becoming a “lost art” among the current generation of students.

“Fifteen or Twenty years ago, students routinely have written by hand several hours a day- but now they write virtually nothing by hand except exams”, she said.

“As faculties 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 harder and harder to read these scripts”.

Dr. Pearsall added that an increasing number of scripts have to be transcribed centrally, meaning that students with illegible writing are forced to come back to their college during the summer holidays to read their answers aloud in the presence of two University administrators.

She said it is “extraordinarily commendable” that the University is considering reforms to its examination practices. But others  

criticized the move, voicing fear that the “handwritten word become a matter of nostalgia”.

Tracey Trussell, a handwriting expert at the British institute of Graphologists, urged Cambridge to “make sure that students continue to write by hand, particularly in lectures”.

“Certainly with social media, iPads and all the rest of it, people do clearly use keyboards much more than they would hand write”, she said adding: “It’s vital that people continue to write by hand”.

She said that written by hand “improves memory” and “equates to a higher rate of comprehension, understanding and information retention”.

One former student told that “I did all my exams on laptops- it really helped me but it makes being able to touch type essential”.

Another said ‘I think being able to go back and change your essay which you can’t do when writing would make things harder as people would run out of time trying to create the perfect answer’.

A Cambridge University spokesman said the review was ordered after ‘students raised concerns  that   they   rarely   handwrite

during their studies’. He added; ‘As part of this, a consultation is being conducted among students on whether computers should be allowed in exams.

‘The consultation is on-going and will be used to inform future decisions making on the issue’.

Cambridge became the first University which comes forward with such a big thing. Earlier there are some competitive exams, which are held online. In India most of the Bank exams and some entrance exams are conducted online in order to save paper and ease valuation.

Conducting online examination has ahuge advantage, like. It saves paper. By saving paper, it saves trees. Deforestation is one of the major problems we are facing today.

At the same time it save sour time and it is cost effective too.

Like every coin has two sides, we should be aware of issues of fraud before conducting an online exam.

Altogether, online exams are not bad. We should travel with time. Technology has improved. It is meant to ease our works. So why should we stay back?? Come forward and embrace the possibilities!!