Exams chief warns MPs of another fiasco next year

A shortage of markers could blight next year's GCSE and A-level exams, the new head of the Government's exams watchdog warned last night.

This year's debacle over A-level grading would deter some people from marking at a time when there was already a shortage of examiners, said Ken Boston, chief executive of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority.

He said England had the "most excessive" exam system in the world. "We are running here a 21st-century education system on a huge cottage industry," he said.

Mr Boston said next year's A-levels faced "major risks", despite the attention brought to them by this summer's grading fiasco. He told the all-party Commons Education Select Committee that he had "no magic wand" to solve the problems surrounding the exams.

"I am not at all sure that the path to next January's and June's exams will be smooth." Resolving the problems that led to this summer's A-level grading crisis would be a big challenge, he said.

The QCA had to be independent of government to ensure it had credibility with the public, he argued.

Mr Boston said he had seen no evidence of political interference in the examination process but argued that the relationship needed to be made more transparent. "The problems which have emerged are the product of a whole series of mistakes made by government, the QCA and the awarding bodies, as well as lack of community understanding across the country about what the standards are," he said.

The authority's greatest mistake had been its failure to give the Government a clear enough warning that the new-style A-levels were being introduced too quickly, Mr Boston said. "A change of that magnitude really should take three years in development and two years of piloting," he said. The new syllabuses were not finalised until January 2000, nine months before the teaching began.

Mr Boston, who took over as chief executive of the QCA last month, said he had been amazed to discover that there had been 3,500 new syllabuses for British tests and exams since 1998. "This is 15 new syllabuses a week. That is stretching the exam system to its absolute limits."

Pressed on whether it was right for officials under Estelle Morris, who resigned as Education Secretary last week, to have contacted the boards directly about whether they could handle a large-scale regrading operation, Mr Boston replied that he did not believe it was. "My concern was that the QCA, as regulator, hadn't been consulted. I had no criticism of the Secretary of State," he said.

¿ Professor Tim Brighouse, the pioneer of target setting in education who transformed Birmingham's schools, is to be appointed commissioner of schools in London. His role will be to co-ordinate policy between London boroughs.