New South Wales may pause take-home assessments as AI puts authentic student work in doubt

The government is considering a pause, not declaring a ban

The education minister asked the New South Wales Education Standards Authority to examine a moratorium on unsupervised take-home assessments while it conducts a broader review. The authority was also asked to develop a common approach for identifying inappropriate AI use in student work.

Subject-specific advice is expected, and major projects may receive exemptions. If interim changes are recommended, the government says they could begin in Term 4 to give the 2027 HSC cohort, schools, and families time to prepare.

The real issue is what a grade certifies

Half of a student's HSC result is based on school assessment. When part of that work is completed beyond observation, a fluent AI system can help produce an artifact that may not reveal the student's independent knowledge, judgment, or creative process.

Detection cannot solve that problem reliably because authorship is not a visible property of polished prose. Assessments need process evidence: supervised work, oral defense, drafts, source decisions, demonstrations, and tasks that require students to apply knowledge in ways teachers can inspect.

Protect learning without banning every useful tool

AI can support feedback, accessibility, practice, and teacher preparation. The policy challenge is to distinguish uses that extend learning from uses that replace the mental work an assessment is intended to measure.

A durable framework should state what students may delegate, what they must perform independently, how assistance is disclosed, and how capability is confirmed. The goal is not to preserve take-home work as a tradition. It is to preserve the meaning of the credential.

• Match assessment conditions to the learning outcome being certified.
• Use supervised, oral, practical, and process-based evidence where authorship matters.
• Permit disclosed assistance only when it does not replace the targeted skill.
• Evaluate policies for access and disability impacts before applying them system-wide.