Scotland's chief examiners want handwriting classes to be introduced because many pupils no longer know how to write longhand.

They have raised concerns that teenagers, brought up using e-mail and texting, have lost the ability to work with a pen and paper. They said that a large number of Higher English exam papers could not be marked because of illegible handwriting.

The Principal Assessors Report for 2007 said “markers are increasingly concerned about handwriting that is difficult to read” and called for dedicated classes for “candidates whose handwriting is seriously weak or known to become so under examination pressure”.

Several private schools, including Mary Erskine and Stewart’s Melville junior school and Cargilfield prep school, both in Edinburgh, insist their pupils use fountain pens to develop longhand skills.

David Eaglesham, general secretary of the Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association, said poor handwriting was a growing problem but warned that calligraphy classes were unlikely to solve it.

He said examiners had to recognise that handwriting was a dying art and predicted that within a decade all exams would be carried out electronically. Exam pressure compounded the problem, he said.

“Children don’t write now, they e-mail and text friends, and if they’re replying to letters at Christmas, they e-mail their granny because she’s on the internet too,” he said. “There is no easy answer. Going back to copper-plate writing will slow the progress of learning quite substantially and I don’t know how much it will achieve.”

Rhona Brankin, the Labour education spokeswoman, said: “These findings are a concern and it would be a shame if otherwise good exam candidates were marked down because their scripts were illegible. Every

Scottish child should have legible handwriting when they leave school.”

Nick Seaton, of the Campaign for Real Education, said: “When pupils at Higher level don’t have handwriting skills, something is seriously wrong. Too much time is being wasted on computers and not enough attention is being focused on this basic skill which should be mastered in primary schools.”

The report follows figures released last month that revealed nearly half of 14-year-olds in Scottish schools were failing to meet basic standards in English writing. Almost half of S2 pupils failed to achieve Level E in 2006, the most recent year for which figures are available.

Erik Rees, founding member of The British Institute of Graphologists, said it was important to teach children to write clearly at a young age. “Once they go to school and begin to learn to write, they need to be taught a discipline,” he said.

“They need to write clearly so that their notes can be read and understood, and until they are older they must follow the taught script. Poor writing reflects not only the laxity of the child writers but, above all, the lack of control of the person teaching them.”

The Scottish government said that improving writing skills would be a priority under its new education proposals. “We recognise the fundamental role of literacy skills in education, which is why reading, writing and spelling are to be embedded in all aspects of the new modern Curriculum for Excellence.”

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