Students denied choice by A-level disputes

Universities should wait six weeks before rejecting applicants who want to appeal against their A-level grades, the head of the independent body on exam appeals said yesterday.

At present, universities accept and reject candidates in August, as soon as A-level results are published.

But Dame Elizabeth Anson, chairman of the Independent Appeals Authority for School Examinations, said exam boards had been trying to persuade universities to wait until the end of September before rejecting candidates who had missed their grades but who were appealing.

"Even if you appeal as quickly as you can, you still cannot get your place at university because it is all settled," she said.

The authority, which is the final arbiter of exam grade appeals, heard five appeals last year and allowed three of them says its annual report published yesterday. Two A-level appeals in computing and history were allowed, and one in GCSE history.

The number of appeals against exam grades is growing rapidly but they reach the authority only if students are not satisfied after they have appealed to exam boards.

Authority officials believe it is only a matter of time before a board is sued for damages because a pupil has been denied his or her first choice of university.

Dame Elizabeth said they were still worried about delays by both schools and boards in dealing with complaints, meaning that appeals did not reach the authority until 10 months after the results were published."The whole process is a marathon that only the most determined schools complete."

This year's report includes details of an appeal from a school which found that its coursework assessments for GCSE business studies had been reduced by nearly 40 per cent. The exam board said the school had been warned previously that its was not assessing coursework correctly. The authority found that the warning had not been clear enough and the appeal was allowed.

The authority may face a shake-up because of the amalgamation of the two bodies in charge of academic and vocational qualifications in the Education Bill which is going through the Commons. At present , it does not hear appeals for vocational exams.

t Ministers yesterday announced plans to tighten up the grading of vocational A-levels and cut down bureaucracy.