1,000 teachers to resolve exams fiasco

About 1,000 teachers are expected to be taken out of school classrooms in Scotland to handle a flood of up to 125,000 appeals stemming from this year's examinations fiasco, education chiefs said last night.

About 1,000 teachers are expected to be taken out of school classrooms in Scotland to handle a flood of up to 125,000 appeals stemming from this year's examinations fiasco, education chiefs said last night.

Other teachers will also be expected to work over weekends to deal with 6,200 urgent appeals from students seeking college or university places.

The Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) said it expected 125,000 appeals from students at all levels who received poorer grades than they expected, which was well over twice the number it would normally anticipate.

Bill Morton, the SQA's interim chief executive, said: "I will do my very best, as will the staff of the SQA, to approach this with a very great degree of diligence and make sure that the problems which beset us earlier this year do not occur in the appeals process."

He added: "The SQA will make sure that there are adequate resources in place to deal with the volume and complexity of the task."

Mr Morton said he expected that the teachers drafted in to help with the appeals would work extra hours, including over weekends, to deal with the volume of appeals.

Mike Ewart, from the Scottish Executive education department, said Scotland's directors of education would monitor the appeals process to ensure that standards were maintained during the massive exercise.

About 10,000 students received incomplete or inaccurate examination certificates when their results arrived in the post last month after a series of errors attributed to the introduction of a new computer system and changes to the examinations.

The Scottish National Party's education spokesman, Nicola Sturgeon, said last night that thousands of students would now have to wait until Christmas to have their results verified and she renewed her call for Sam Galbraith, Scotland's education minister, to resign.