A private candidate in the UK examination system is a person who enters an examination but is not enrolled as a student at the centre (school or college) where he or she sits the exam. They may have trained themselves for the exam or been taught privately or at an institution which is not a registered examination centre. Centres are not compelled to accept private candidates, and many do not.
The main English examination boards - AQA, OCR and Edexcel - all accept private candidates. AQA does not allow private candidates to sit their examinations outside the UK.
The Welsh examination board Welsh Joint Education Committee allows private candidates. The Northern Irish CCEA uses the term "external candidate" to refer to people in the same situation.
The international examination board CIE does not allow private candidates in the UK or USA.
Famous quotes containing the words private and/or candidate:
“The great cause which divides our countries is not to be decided by individual animosities. The harmony of private societies cannot weaken national efforts.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“A candidate once called his opponent “a willful, obstinate, unsavory, obnoxious, pusillanimous, pestilential, pernicious, and perversable liar” without pausing for breath, and even his enemies removed their hats.”
—Federal Writers’ Project Of The Wor, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)