In Denmark, simply submitting the assignment is no longer enough. You have to defend it, out loud, in front of a teacher who can ask anything about what you wrote.
The Ministry of Education, led by Magnus Heunicke, announced emergency measures this week: all written exams that students take at home now require a mandatory oral defense. The rule takes effect immediately and directly affects the nearly 9,000 students in the HF program, the two-year upper secondary program where written assignments carry significant weight in the final grade. Schools will also have to install screen monitoring and firewalls during exams, and students are expected to complete more assignments in the classroom, under direct supervision.
Oscar Tønsberg Hoffmann, president of the Danish Association of Upper Secondary Students, welcomed the measure but called for something deeper: for this change to truly help students learn, not just monitor them. The question hanging in the air is simple. Is it fair to burden students with more oral exams because of a few who used AI to cheat?
