Thousands face exam regrading as system is declared a disaster

Tens of thousands of students faced having their A-level results regraded last night as a result of the Tomlinson inquiry into this summer's marking fiasco.

The former chief schools inspector Mike Tomlinson revealed yesterday that the crisis was "an accident waiting to happen" because of the speed with which ministers had pushed through the new exam system.

Sir William Stubbs, chairman of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, who has been at the centre of the furore, resigned yesterday after the report found that exam boards felt he had threatened them to mark down papers.

Mr Tomlinson's findings unleashed further calls for Estelle Morris, the Secretary of State for Education, to be sacked because she was the minister in charge of school standards at the time the system was being devised.

The report said examiners were in the dark about the standards to which they should mark for the new exam. "This resulted, in part, from the speed of implementation of the policy as determined by ministers," it added.

It found that the chief executives of the three exam boards in England – the Oxford and Cambridge and RSA board, the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance and Edexcel – felt under pressure from Sir William.

One exam chief executive told Mr Tomlinson he had felt "under threat" of an independent inquiry into how marking had been conducted if the pass rate rose too much.

As a result of this, Ms Morris announced yesterday that she had decided to "remove" Sir William from office. On hearing of her intention, he resigned.

Last night Sir William said he felt "utterly surprised and saddened" that Ms Morris had "pressured" him into resigning.

He said she told him that if he agreed to quit she would offer "kind words" about him, but if he refused he would have to "consider the consequences".

Mr Tomlinson said yesterday that up to 12 subjects "out of hundreds" could be the subject of a regrading exercise.

Headteachers last night said this could mean checking the scripts of "tens of thousands" of youngsters.

He said he would not know the precise number until Tuesday, but that the regrading would be done by Monday week.

Asked why he had not blamed any individual for the crisis, Mr Tomlinson said: "I think it was an accident – an accident waiting to happen – because of the structure of the awarding system."

Ms Morris said universities had agreed to honour provisional offers made to students whose grades may be upped but she warned: "The fact that institutions have already admitted their full number of students for this year may well mean that students wishing to transfer will be offered places for next year rather than this."

Legal experts said last night this could mean thousands of students could sue for the loss of a year's earnings as they had been forced to put off going to university for a year.

Only two of three exam boards are having their work rechecked because of suspicions that this year's grade boundaries were set incorrectly, the OCR and AQA, with OCR being under most scrutiny. Subject areas affected include French, German, Spanish, history, geography and government and politics.

Mr Tomlinson cleared Sir William and the three exam boards of malpractice and said they had abided by the code of conduct for marking exams.

He said there was no evidence to suggest that Ms Morris and David Miliband, the Minister for School Standards, had sought to interfere with marking.

Damian Green, the Conservative education spokesman, said: "Estelle Morris has been acquitted of malice but convicted of incompetence. The first step to confidence in the system should be the removal from office of a discredited Secretary of State."

Sir William Stubbs' two daughters spoke in support of their father. Nadine, aged 38, a teacher who is not working at present because she has a young family, said: "This is naked politics and it is wrong that my father should have to resign. My parents have devoted their life to education and to helping young people."

Her mother is Lady Marie Stubbs, who rescued St George's school in Maida Vale, west London, from failure after the murder of its previous headteacher, Philip Lawrence.

Fiona Stubbs, aged 35, added: "On this day I am proud to have him as a father. He is my hero and always has been my hero. It is a sad day when someone with amazing honour and integrity should come to this."

She added: "I will not rest until I have seen Estelle Morris go down. My father is a man of honour and Estelle Morris should go down if she has a conscience."