Cambridge International Education to launch digital examinations in June 2026

The International Education group of Cambridge University Press & Assessment (Cambridge) today announced the launch of digital examinations in June 2026. Students at schools in Europe, Middle East and North Africa and the US will have the opportunity to take the Cambridge International AS English General Paper and multiple choice questions in Cambridge IGCSE Accounting, Economics, Biology, Chemistry and Physics on laptops. These exams will meet the same validity, reliability and comparability standards as Cambridge’s paper-based exams and mark the start of Cambridge’s global rollout of digital exams across its full Cambridge IGCSE, AS and A level curricula.

Schools in some regions are now being invited to enrol for this first phase of the digital rollout. They will participate in an Early Adopter Programme which will give them exclusive access to Cambridge’s innovative digital examination platform. Through the programme, schools and students will take part in digital mock tests, familiarisation sessions, and testing of new platform functionalities and support materials to enhance the user experience. Cambridge will gather feedback from participating schools to help refine and enhance its digital platform.

A new era of digital examinations

Cambridge’s digital approach is education-led, so that examinations prove and improve learning. As such, we will use technology to improve accessibility, relevance and – ultimately – learning. Our transition to digital exams will take two forms:

• Migratory. The digital exams scheduled for June 2026 will be a migration of existing paper-based exams to digital formats with minimal change to curricula, type of assessment, or teaching methods.

• Transformational. We are developing new curricula and forms of examination to deliver assessment in a way that has not been possible on paper. Assessments will be redesigned to support teaching and learning aligned to higher education and workplace skills, based on a competency-based curriculum that harnesses collaboration, online research, data and communication skills, for example.

We are drawing on feedback from our school community, on our research, and our examinations expertise to determine which approach to use for each of our qualifications. By 2033, 85% of Cambridge’s high-stakes qualifications will have a digital option.

Rod Smith, Group Managing Director for International Education at Cambridge, said: “Our world has become digitised, and education is no exception. Cambridge International Education provides qualifications to nearly one million students globally every year. Drawing on insights from this community, we have an unrivalled depth of research that will allow us to deliver the optimal form of digital exams to support and assess learning.”

Digital Mocks Service

Beyond the Early Adopter Programme, Cambridge schools have the opportunity to participate in our Digital Mocks Service which is now open for Expressions of Interest from January - March 2025. This service not only helps schools prepare operationally for digital exams of the future, but also returns mock exam results both auto marked and marked by Cambridge examiners so that teachers and learners get detailed results showing each student’s marks, informing them where to focus revision. Since our Digital Mocks Service was launched in 2023, students in 31 countries have taken our digital mock exams in 16 subjects across Cambridge IGCSE and AS & A Level.

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