Pupils have no grasp of three Rs

Pupils are passing national English and maths tests without grasping basic elements of the three Rs, teachers warned today.

Teenagers still cannot use capital letters and full stops correctly despite seven years of the Government's literacy and numeracy drive, say officials of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers.

The ATL wants the tests abolished. Union official Iain Freeland-said 15-year-olds he has been teaching, studying for a leisure and tourism qualification worth four GCSEs, did not know how to use the 24-hour clock.

He claimed the reputation of the national curriculum English, maths and science tests for 14-year-olds is now so dire that teachers are refusing to work as markers despite the generous payments on offer.

Teacher unions have long hated the national tests of 11- and 14-year-olds, which the Government sees as a vital indicator of the performance of schools as well as pupils.

Staff say they have to spend huge amounts of time cramming children to ensure they pass and make their schools look good in the league tables.

Now the ATL - seen as the most moderate of the teaching unions - has re-opened the debate about how much trust parents can place in the results.

Speaking at the association's annual conference in Torquay, to be addressed today by Education Secretary Ruth Kelly, Mr Free-land, head of humanities at The Challenge College, Bradford, said ministers must listen to warnings about the severe unreliability of the English tests at age 14.

The National Assessment Agency and its marking contractor Edexcel, owned by publishing giant Pearson, has to recruit 1,000 markers for these tests.

But Mr Freeland said they would struggle to get fully qualified teachers to

do the work and would have to rely on trainees and undergraduates. "We are not in the position where we can trust the results when they arrive in schools," he added.

" Teachers have to spend hours - even days - checking the marking and regularly send 50-60 per cent of the papers back to be remarked." An NAA spokesman insisted there would be enough markers this year, even though the tests, taken in the first week of May, are less than two months away.

The spokesman also said markers will be fully trained and that the NAA is committed to delivering results that teachers can have faith in.