British school bans fountain pens

Oct 12, 2010 |

London

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In an unusual move, a school in Britain has banned the use of fountain pens as they prevent students "from getting top examination results".

Jack Williams, the principal of Hillcrest Grammar and Preparatory School in Stockport, said that in future fountain pens would be banned just to ensure no students suffer marking mistakes in their computer-scanned examination papers.

However, Williams said: "Banning fountain pens is against all my principles. But I'm told scanners pick up biro much more easily than fountain pen and for maths and science it could be the difference between grades.

"I haven't got a choice because of the way exams are processed. I think they should be looking at their technology." The principal of the 350-student school said that in mathematics exams in 2009, some decimal points were not picked up by the scanners, meaning pupils were wrongly marked, the Daily Express reported.

He said" "The papers don't now get sent straight to a marker — they get sent to head office, scanned into a computer and then the marker marks them online."

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