Rejected petition Ban exam questions that assume there are only two genders.

Often on maths exams, there are questions of the form “In a class of 30 students, 14 students are male. How many are female?” These questions are based on the assumption that all people are either make or female. National exam boards should not be permitted to include questions of this form.

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As well as being old fashioned, it excludes trans-students, gender fluid students and reduces the voice of all students. The questions can be rephrased for things that are binary, such as simply writing “how many are not male”.
In the past, consciously including ethnically diverse names and a mix of traditionally male and female names has successfully led to a more inclusive set of questions and the time is right to do this again.

This petition was rejected

Why was this petition rejected?

It’s about something that the UK Government or Parliament is not directly responsible for.

We can only accept petitions about things the Government or Parliament are directly responsible for.

Decisions about exam questions are a matter for individual exam boards, not the UK Government or Parliament.

Exam boards are overseen by Ofqual, the regulator of qualifications, examinations and assessments in England, and you can find out how to complain about an exam board here: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofqual/about/complaints-procedure

We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards.

Date submitted 30 March 2022
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