Answer papers for national examinations taken in Singapore could be electronically marked in future.

The Singapore Examinations and Assessment Board has recently completed a pilot run in which hard copies of last year's national exam papers were scanned and digitised before being marked online. More pilot tests are planned over the next year.

Electronic marking is expected to reduce the risk of scripts being lost or stolen, as well as cut the time taken to count them. However, it will take some time to implement.

The move to try out electronic marking comes after a parcel of 238 A-level Chemistry Paper 3 scripts from Singapore was stolen from a van transporting the papers to an examiner in Britain last November.

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