Artificial Intelligence Forces Universities and Schools to Reinvent Exams to Prevent Cheating, Plagiarism
The Australian Financial Review
ENRICHED
Details
- Date Published
- 4 Sept 2026
- Priority Score
- 2
- Australian
- Yes
- Created
- 4 Sept 2026, 12:00 pm
Description
Universities and schools are confronting the existential challenge of teaching young people to think when a computer can do it faster.
Summary
This article examines the shift in Australian educational assessment strategies as generative AI capabilities challenge traditional methods of measuring student cognition. The move toward supervised, handwritten exams highlights the difficulty in verifying human output in the age of advanced LLMs. While the piece primarily addresses academic integrity, it underscores the rapid integration of frontier AI into daily life and the resulting need for robust governance frameworks to manage socio-technical disruptions. The findings are highly relevant to Australian education policy and the broader discourse on how society adapts to pervasive, high-capability AI systems.
Body
Maani TruuEducation correspondentSep 4, 2026 – 8.00pmThe last place Daniel Cash expected to see ChatGPT was during a handwritten law exam. The third-year arts and law student was used to the cast of familiar interfaces staring back at him from his peers’ computer screens during lectures, but this was different.There was no technology permitted in the exam room; students were only allowed to bring in hard copy notes. On his neighbour’s desks were printed screenshots of ChatGPT conversations. “I remember thinking, ‘wow, nothing is safe’,” the 20-year-old says. “I thought that was kind of surreal.”Loading...SaveLog in or Subscribe to save articleShareCopy linkCopiedEmailLinkedInTwitterFacebookCopy linkCopiedShare via...Gift this articleSubscribe to gift this articleGift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe.Subscribe nowAlready a subscriber? LoginLicense articleRead MoreAIUniversityAFR WeekendPerspectiveAlan FinkelUniversity of Western AustraliaUniversity of New South WalesMaani TruuEducation correspondentMaani Truu is The Australian Financial Review’s education correspondent, covering schools and higher education from Parliament House in Canberra. She was previously a federal political reporter at the ABC. Send encrypted tips to @maanitruu.72 on Signal. Email Maani at maani.truu@afr.com.auFetching latest articles