Have your say: letters to the editor, April 2024

I think it is preposterous for an organisation of ABRSM's standing to deny an automatic, quality certificate to students paying considerable sums to sit their exams. In your email, you say it is to ‘maintain standards’ and is more ‘secure’. In what way? How can watermarked quality paper be faked more easily than pathetic black-and-white pages produced on a home printer? Which would look more suspicious, as a potential forgery? And if you really believe this piffe, why are you happy to forego these standards and security for a charge when sending a paper one anyway?

Ditto your point about sustainability. How is it different to the planet whether you provide the certificate or the parent/teacher prints it? I believe that if you want to give candidates a choice as to whether their certificate remains on a database or arrives in the post, it should be an opt-out, not opt-in, because the exam fee is more than enough to cover the cost.