A-level papers to be remarked

Everu pupil involved in the A-level fixing debacle is to have their paper re- marked, Education Secretary Estelle Morris ordered tonight.

The announcement came as the chief executive of the exam board at the centre of the row was due to be carpeted by the head of the Government's exams watchdog, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority.

Dr Ron McLone was due to face "searching questions" about the Oxford, Cambridge and RSA board's conduct, senior sources said, after it was disclosed that the board had downgraded pupils' exams in order to prevent this year's A-levels appearing too easy.

Thousands of pupils, many at some of the country's top independent schools, have been affected by the scandal. Some have lost university places as a result. Their head teachers have demanded an independent inquiry into the affair and the Headmasters Conference, which represents the leading independent schools, has said it would back any which took legal action against the OCR.

Earlier today Ms Morris resisted calls for an independent inquiry, pending a report on the affair by the QCA. But in an apparent about-turn, before the watchdog made its report - due on Friday - she said all candidates involved in the affair would have a chance to have their papers re-marked.

In a statement, the Department for Education and Skills said: "Estelle Morris today agreed with Ken Boston, chief executive of the QCA, that the disputed A-level papers set and marked by the OCR exam board will be re-marked. She made it clear to Mr Boston that she expected each candidate disputing awards from the OCR board to be given the opportunity to have their papers re-marked."

Ms Morris said: "These are not statistics. These are people's futures. I have discussed this with Ken Boston and I have been assured that they will be working around the clock on this."

Despite growing accusations that she was allowing the scandal to be covered up, Ms Morris had earlier insisted that an internal review - by a Government quango reporting privately to her office - was adequate.

As the first step this afternoon, Dr McLone was summoned to explain why marks for bright students were downgraded. He said in a letter to schools that he personally intervened to increase the number of marks needed for any given grade in order to maintain "parity of standards" with previous years.

But Opposition MPs said the QCA itself - charged with grilling him - was equally implicated in the scandal because it sits in on crucial meetings where exam boards decide how to allocate grades. Ms Morris, however, insisted there was no need for a full external inquiry team to find out why pupils were denied their proper grades. She said: "I take this very seriously because examinations are important and the exam boards run an industry that has to be 100 per cent perfect.

"What I think is important is that we gather the facts and find out what has happened, and when we find out what's happened we take action. That's exactly what's happening at the moment." Her refusal to allow a fully independent inquiry was building into a fullscale political crisis for the Government, with Opposition MPs demanding the publication of all contact between ministers and the exam bodies during this summer.

Damien Green, the shadow education secretary, said: "We urgently need an outside investigation - not one conducted by the Government's own body, the QCA. We need to see all the guidance, documents and emails that went between the department, the QCA and the exam boards." He said it "beggars belief " that the OCR board acted without being steered by either the Government or the QCA. The Education Department dismissed the allegation that ministers could have put pressure on the exam boards as "utter rubbish".

And Ken Boston, chief executive of the QCA, repeated his statement from Monday: "We can categorically state that there has been no instruction by the QCA to depress grades artificially and disadvantage students."

The OCR board, meanwhile, insisted it had done nothing wrong, saying the adjustment of marks was inevitable when a new form of exam was introduced. But teachers' leaders described today's revelation as a "scandal" and said that if allegations of grade fixing were proved to be true, "heads should roll" at the exam boards.

Senior members of the Headmasters Conference (HMC) are due to meet Dr McLone tomorrow, to demand an explanation of the way their pupils were downgraded.

Independent schools have been hit hard by this year's A-level downgrading because the OCR board has historically been their exam board of choice.

In his letter to schools, Dr McLone reveals how the board panicked after realising this summer that A-level grades were set to go through the roof, and ordered examiners to adjust the marks required to achieve each grade so as to match the results more closely with last year's. Many pupils who received A-grades throughout their study were failed on their final unit - their coursework. Some have lost university places as a result.

Sixth-formers now study six modules - or units. The first three, completed in the first year of the sixth form, constitute an AS-level, which can be converted into a full A-level with three more A2 units taken in the second year. The letter said: " Combining AS unit results with the outcomes initially recommended by awarding committees created many overall distributions that varied significantly from what might have been expected."

This had to be corrected "to ensure that, overall, the standards required at A-level last year were demonstrably carried forward into 2002".