On 10 August 2026, NSW Education Minister Prue Car asked NESA to suspend unsupervised take-home assessment in the HSC. Three weeks later, on 31 August, NESA published the rule that will apply. It is a cap, not a ban: a Stage 6 course can include no more than one take-home assessment task, worth a maximum of 15% of the school-based mark. HSC courses follow the rule from Term 4 2026 and Preliminary courses from Term 1 2027.

Half of a student's HSC result comes from school-based assessment, and some of that has been completed at home with no supervision. The Minister's concern was that AI has made those tasks unreliable as evidence of what a student can do. NSW recorded more than 1,000 cases of cheating in 2025, according to ABC reporting on the change.

What NESA decided on take-home assessment

NESA defines a take-home task as one "completed outside a classroom, formal examination setting or teacher-approved monitoring conditions". Everything else counts as supervised, which gives schools some room. A task drafted in class over several lessons, with the teacher watching the work develop, is not a take-home task even if it is not an exam.

Fourteen courses are exempt because they already rest on a major project or an HSC practical exam: Aboriginal Studies, Society and Culture, Design and Technology, Industrial Technology, Textiles and Design, Visual Arts, Dance, Drama, Music 1, Music 2, English Extension 2, Science Extension, History Extension and Music Extension. NESA's board will consider subject-specific advice for 2028 onwards.

Two other lines in the directive matter as much as the cap. Schools must design assessment so that "marks reflect the student's own knowledge, skills and understanding. Marks must not reflect a student's use of generative AI." And on detection software: schools "should not rely on AI detection tools as the main safeguard against malpractice. If used at all, detection software should be treated as only one input for teacher professional review, not as sole proof of AI use or malpractice."

How other states handle AI in school-based assessment

No other state has set a numeric cap. An ABC survey of the jurisdictions on 25 August found most are relying on existing integrity rules and on the national framework.

Victoria's VCAA requires that submitted work is the student's own, that resources are acknowledged, and that School-Assessed Coursework and School-Assessed Tasks run under teacher supervision with set conditions. In April 2026 it added a declaration covering the use of generative AI and plagiarism software in written reports. Schools adjudicate suspected breaches themselves.

Queensland's QCAA runs internal assessment under conditions set jointly with schools, requires every senior student to complete an academic integrity course, and permits digital tools where they add learning value. South Australia has gone the other way and put a department-built chatbot, EdChat, into high schools. Professor Leslie Loble described its design to the ABC: "The tool challenges the student through further questioning and providing some information but not the answer."

Tasmania blocks AI apps and websites on department devices and has no take-home exams in Year 11 and 12 external assessment. Western Australia, the Northern Territory and the ACT have adopted the national framework and rely on their existing authentication rules; the ACT reports integrity issues in about 0.1% of assessments.

What the cap does and does not fix

The cap removes the tasks most exposed to AI from the marks that count toward a credential. That is a reasonable response for a high-stakes system, and it is limited to Stage 6, so Years 7 to 10 are untouched.

It does not change the underlying problem, which is that a task completable by a chatbot was measuring the output, not the learning. We made that argument in why AI cheating is really an assessment design problem, and NESA's own wording points the same way: marks must reflect the student's knowledge, not the tool's. A school that meets the 15% cap by moving one essay into an exam room has complied. A school that redesigns the task so the process is visible has done something more useful, and it will still be useful in Year 9, where the cap does not apply.

The detection guidance is the part other states should copy first. Detection tools produce false positives, and an accusation built on a percentage score does not survive a parent meeting. NESA has now said in writing that detection software is one input for professional judgement and never proof on its own. Any school in any state can adopt that line today.

A practical read for schools outside NSW

fact_check Watch for

NESA's board is due to consider subject-specific advice for 2028 and beyond. Schools that redesign now, rather than relocate tasks into exam rooms, will have less to redo when that advice lands.

Sources

Assessment HSC AI Policy