Unreliable exam results 'not fit for publication'

Plans to publish results of national English tests were in disarray today following a marking fiasco.

Exam chiefs say this year's results are so unreliable they are not fit for publication.

The admission is an embarrassment for Education Secretary Charles Clarke and suggests thousands of pupils were not awarded the grades they deserved.

The announcement - in a terse statement from the Department for Education and Skills - comes a week before A-level results are due to be published and threatens to undermine public confidence. The Government also needs the figures to help persuade voters that secondary schools are improving.

The crisis relates to the marking of 600,000 Key Stage 3 English papers. The results were due to be published on 24 August. Pupils who sat the tests in English, maths and science this year are the first to have completed the revised curriculum for 11- to 14-year-olds as part of the Government's strategy to improve standards in the early years of secondary schools.

But exam chiefs were inundated with complaints from schools following "haywire" marking. They were forced to review about 100,000 papers - a sixth of the total - amid claims of clerical errors and inconsistencies.

The Department for Education now says its head of statistics has judged this year's marks "not fit for the purpose".

A spokesman for the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority today said the results would be published at some point.

"There is no question that the results will not be published in time," she said. Results for maths and science will be published on 24 August as scheduled.

This year's difficulties are the result of a new marking system intended to improve efficiency.

Reading and writing elements of the English test were split between different markers but bringing marks back together took longer than expected. While most schools got their provisional results before the end of term, double-checking of borderline papers did not always take place.

Schools have until 9 September to return borderline papers for checks.