Online Exams Boost Amateur Radio Numbers
/The RSGB has released the statistics for the UK amateur radio exams held in 2020
The figures released cover the whole of 2020 for both in-person and Remotely Invigilated (RI) Online exams. Due to the pandemic in-person exams were only held during the first 10 weeks of the year and there weren't many of them.
RI Online Foundation exams that people can do from home started in mid-April but the RI Online Intermediate exams weren't available until August. Full exams didn't get underway until the end of October. No exams were held in the last two weeks of December.
Note the Exam Candidates figures are for exams booked, there are a number of "no-shows" as circumstances can mean not everyone is able to sit their exam on the day booked.
|
2020 |
Exam Candidates |
Passes |
|
Foundation |
3087 |
2774 |
|
Intermediate |
868 |
759 |
|
Full |
378 |
258 |
The number of people passing Foundation in 2020 was double that of 2019, this number of newcomers is a return to levels last seen in 2002.
The figures for the Full exam are especially pleasing to see. While free online training courses have been available for Foundation and Intermediate there were no training courses available for the Full exam so candidates had to rely on just self-study of the Full training manual. Although the online Full exam was only available for about 7 weeks of the year the numbers passing were two-thirds of the entire total for 2019.
The RSGB is currently consulting on its proposal to introduce a new Direct To Full exam - https://www.rsgb.org/direct-to-full
