Blunders eroding confidence in the exam system

Warnings of the depth of the crisis in the exams system, illustrated by a new series of confidence-damaging blunders this week, were powerfully articulated shortly before Easter.

John Dunford, general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association, told his annual conference that 2002 would be the year of "Examtrack". Comparing the board to the failed Railtrack, he said: "In the way that the Hatfield disaster exposed the underlying problems of the rail network, the Edexcel problems are warning that 'Examtrack' has deep problems, which must be addressed sooner rather later."

Even he might have been taken aback at the swiftness with which the problem would emerge, with all three of the main boards having to admit to script blunders within the first two weeks of the exam season.

The boards have also had to make an emergency plea to the churches to see if they can enlist clergymen to help overcome a shortage of markers. Religious education is one of the most popular subjects, with 165,000 candidates taking its GCSE short course last year compared with 12,000 five years ago when it was first started.

Edexcel, the beleaguered exam board at the centre of the controversy but by no means the only culprit, will be awarding more than 10 million marks for scripts this summer ­ compared with 4.1 million two years ago. Last year it awarded 7.9 million. Both the OCR and AQA, the two other big boards, have also registered increases.

The three boards have to recruit 50,000 examiners this year ­ similar to the number last year but about 10,000 more than two years ago. The boards say they have recruited about 97.5 per cent of the examiners they need but shortages still exist, particularly in religious studies and information technology. They are still short of up to 1,250 markers ­ hence the pleas to the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church and free churches to help out.

George Turnbull, a spokesman for the Joint Council for Voluntary Organisations, the umbrella body that represents the boards, said: "Obviously, they're not necessarily trained teachers but they are extremely well qualified and this is not the first time we've written asking for examiners from outside the profession."

Cracks are clearly showing. Edexcel has been forced to apologise for three blunders this week ­ making Roedean School girls wait 50 minutes for a biology paper, asking candidates to answer all nine questions in a vocational business studies A-level when there were 11 questions and transposing the results of the 1997 and 2001 elections in an AS-level government and politics exam. AQA asked students in an English literature GCSE exam about a poetry anthology they had not studied. A diagram in an OCR health studies paper gave pupils information that showed microbes growing rap-idly at temperatures of 50C to 100C when they are killed at these temperatures.

The exam regime has been growing steadily since the Conservatives introduced their Great Education Reform Bill after the 1987 election. The Bill introduced the concept of national curriculum tests for all 7, 11 and 14-year-olds. The Labour government introduced AS-levels at 16 or 17 and added a key-skills qualification. The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, the Government's exams watchdog, is now setting 30 million papers a year and a bright child can expect to take 105 exams and tests during his or her school career.

The problem ministers have to address is that stories of blunders, as well as exams not being marked on time ­ as happened last summer ­ are eroding the confidence of parents and teachers.

The issue could be addressed through the Government's Green Paper on reforming 14-to-19 education. The Government has come out against the scrapping of GCSEs even though it admits their importance will be diminished by the advent of new post-16 vocational qualifications and a strengthening of the modern apprenticeship system for pupils who traditionally would have left school at 16. Ministers will announce their recipe for the new system within months.

They should remember a poll of secondary school teachers published in April, which showed that 31 per cent no longer had confidence in exam marking. For a profession that usually rallies round to protect itself from outside criticism (markers are teachers, too) that is highly significant.