abstract:The external examiner plays an important role in all degree level examinations in higher education in the United Kingdom. The external examiner system originated in 1832 with the establishment of the University of Durham, the first in England since Cambridge was founded 600 years earlier.
In 1986 an externalexaminer for the Welsh Joint Education Committee (WJEC) - the Welsh examinations board - stopped a performance in which a naked pupil simulated a sex act.