At worst, it could affect students’ performance in the most important stage of their lives thus far.

The arguments for the move to online are there.

Many students these days are fast typists and hand-writing skills appear to be declining.

The move is also environmentally-friendly – about 50,000 students sit Victorian Certificate of Education exams each year alone.

We have the technology to bring exams into the 21st Century.

But – does that mean we have to?

A University of Washington professor believes hand-writing more actively engages the brain than typing does.

With hand-writing exams, one does not often have the chance to rewrite chunks of text, while on a computer the option – and temptation – to rewrite whole answers is there.

A study by the University of Edinburgh in the UK showed this was a concern of students in a paper-to-computer move.

The ability to cheat could increase, as could the chance of accidentally losing a block of text – or whole exam – with the hit of the wrong key.

Spellcheck and grammatical checkers would also need to be removed from any exam program online.

As for maths, the ability to scribble down numbers to realise the answer is removed on a computer.

Technology has a place in schools, as it does in workplaces. But its need must be assessed carefully.

The new online platform must be tested thoroughly before being induced on students.

After all, they are the ones who will suffer the kinks in a system introduced for the benefit of a State Government appearing ‘technologically-savvy’.