GCSE whistleblower sacked

The man who blew the whistle on the "fixing" of record GCSE results has been sacked by the exam board which employed him in what he has described as a "conspiracy of silence" to hide the truth about education standards.

Jeffrey Robinson, a senior maths examiner with the Oxford, Cambridge and RSA exam board before he retired this year, exposed in the Evening Standard how over 16 years he saw the marks required to achieve each exam grade fall.

Exam boards, driven by commercial competition, deliberately manipulated pass rates to offer schools the best chance of league table success, he claimed. Now his employers have accused him of "breaching confidentiality" and he has been sacked from his job as an examiner with the board's international arm, Cambridge International Examinations.

Today, Mr Robinson, 67, accused the board of acting out of "spite" because he had exposed the truth. "Everyone who works for the exam boards must be scared to speak out, otherwise they're going to get the sack. It is a conspiracy of silence," he said.

Several of his fellow maths examiners publicly disputed his claims but last week he dismissed an inquiry into his allegations as a "whitewash" after Education Minister Stephen Timms said no evidence was found that grade boundaries had been lowered.

Now he is seeking support for legal action to win his job back. The University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate claims he broke contractual obligations not to disclose confidential information or to speak to the press.