Next year's A-levels already rigged, say schools

Next year's A-level results have been systematically rigged by the exam boards, according to evidence compiled for the Tomlinson inquiry into this year's grades controversy.

The Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference (HMC), the independent schools body which has led the campaign for an investigation, says the marking scandal is likely to claim thousands of additional victims.

The boards have been accused of ordering a new, lower pass rate for this year's A-level candidates. Now schools are accusing them of doing the same thing to 17-year-olds who took the AS examination to depress their final results in 2003. The AS is normally taken in the lower sixth and is the first half of the full A-level.

One board told its examiners that their initial judgments about grades were "politically unacceptable" because the pass rate would be too high.

Although the Schools Minister, David Miliband, has met the Government's examinations quango, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), on four occasions since his appointment in June, the Department for Education and Skills said that grade boundaries were not discussed.

Last week an enquiry by the QCA found no evidence of wrong-doing by examiners and blamed some teachers for misunderstanding the requirements of the A-level.

The finding angered heads, teachers and students who continue to blame the boards and the QCA for a series of freak results that saw high-performing candidates awarded U and E grades in final papers.

Evidence that AS grades were manipulated downwards was gathered by Andrew Grant, headmaster of St Albans School and chair of the HMC's academic policy committee.

He said: "The evidence I am hearing from examiners is that, in order to head off difficulties next year, AS modules had a similar downward pressure applied to grades. This was in order to depress, relative to last year, the total marks scored at AS so that there wouldn't need to be a radical adjustment in 2003. There's a lot of evidence, anecdotal and statistical, of that decision."

A senior examiner with the Oxford Cambridge and RSA Examinations (OCR) group, who wished to remain anonymous, confirmed that the board had ordered new, lower grades for A-level and AS exams following a meeting between the OCR chief executive, Ron McLone, and Sir William Stubbs, chairman of the QCA. It was made "explicit", he said, that the pressure had come from the QCA.

Schools across the country are complaining about low AS pass rates. Bob Reed, head of the Anglo European School at Ingatestone in Essex, said: "We have seen signs of the same approach at AS level – youngsters getting 95 per cent in their written papers then a U in their course work."

Thousands of students this year may find their A-level results upgraded and – as a result – be entitled to places at universities that had offered them a conditional place but turned them down as a result of earlier incorrect grades.

Estelle Morris, the Secretary of State for Education, has promised places will be kept open for them next year at the universities of their choice. She is signalling her willingness to make changes to the exam system on the advice of the Tomlinson inquiry. There is also pressure on Ms Morris to order a shake-up of the school year to allow GCSEs and A-levels to be taken in April.