A-level fiasco: Up to 100,000 students may be affected

Up to 100,000 students are to have their A-level or AS marks regraded under a massive review of this summer's results announced yesterday.

Mike Tomlinson, chairman of the inquiry into this summer's A-level fiasco, has ordered 304,205 papers across 31 subjects regraded because of fears that they have been unfairly downgraded.

Meanwhile, the board at the centre of the dispute, Oxford Cambridge and RSA Examinations (OCR), agreed to regrade a further 136,558 entries to its English literature and psychology exams, because of a huge number of allegations about the "fixing" of these papers.

This means nearly 450,000 papers will have their grades reviewed – about 10 per cent of those sat this summer. The exact number of students who will have their results regraded is not yet known. About 250,000 students take A-levels every summer, with a similar number taking the new AS-levels.

Both sets of students face an anxious fortnight, since the results of the regrading will not be announced until 15 October, four days after the original deadline.

Almost all of the papers to be regraded were set by OCR. But subjects affected also include English literature and French papers set by the largest board, the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA), as well as Arabic, French, Modern Greek, ICT and Spanish papers set by Edexcel.

The inquiry was launched after accusations from head teachers that exam boards had deliberately downgraded this year's A-levels and AS-levels to prevent the new-style exams appearing too easy.

The regrading will cover at least 104 individual AS and A2 units out of 1,438 sat this summer, for which there were at least 304,205 entries. OCR has agreed to regrade a further 17 English literature and psychology units, which attracted 136,558 entries.

Mr Tomlinson announced the number of papers under suspicion after two days of discussions with the exam boards, which had persuaded him the extent of the problem was double his initial estimate. On Friday he said about 12 subjects were involved.

The news prompted further calls from the Conservative Party for Estelle Morris, the Secretary of State for Education, to resign.