Britain’s exams regulator, Ofqual, has issued a formal Chief Regulator’s Rebuke to Pearson over serious administrative failures in the 2025 A-level Mathematics examinations, describing the errors as “serious and entirely avoidable.”
According to Ofqual, Pearson reused contingency question papers from 2022, resulting in significant similarities between examination papers and raising concerns that some students could anticipate questions.
The exam board subsequently replaced one of the scheduled papers with an alternative contingency paper, leading to an imbalanced assessment in which some topics were overrepresented while others received insufficient coverage.
More than 75,000 students sat the examinations. While Ofqual concluded that the overall impact on candidates’ final grades was statistically minimal, it said the failures caused unnecessary anxiety and undermined confidence in the examination system.
Chief Regulator Sir Ian Bauckham said students deserved a fair and professionally managed assessment process, adding that the shortcomings were preventable. Pearson has been directed to strengthen its assessment and quality assurance procedures to prevent similar incidents in future.
