Ministers' patience 'wearing thin' over exam errors

The Government said yesterday for the first time that its patience was "wearing thin" with exam boards over a series of blunders connected with this year's GCSE, AS and A-level papers.

The warning came after a paper prepared by the Cabinet Office listed teachers' grievances over the examinations system, focusing on late arrival of scripts, papers not being marked on time and errors in questions. A review of the performance of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), the Government's examinations watchdog, to be published on Monday, will list weaknesses in the way it monitors the examination system.

The Cabinet Office paper says teachers want the authority to be given more teeth to perform its role effectively. Estelle Morris, the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, will urge it to use new powers to step in and direct exam boards to correct errors "with vigour".

An aide to Ms Morris insisted yesterday that the number of errors were still "relatively few", but added: "Our patience does wear thin when we see mistakes arising that could be dealt with. If there are real problems, we would expect the QCA to use their new powers and deal with them."

He said the review of the authority's work, which is done every five years, would identify "strengths and weaknesses" in the running of the organisation.

A new chief executive with a reputation for toughness, Ken Boston, the head of education and training in New South Wales, Australia, has been hired to lead the organisation from September.

Blunders have been made this year by all three of the leading exam boards, Edexcel, AQA and OCR, and include late arrival of papers and errors in questions. In one case, girls from the exclusive Roedean private school in Brighton, were made to wait for 50 minutes for the arrival of a paper.

Teachers' leaders say the problems of the exam system will not be solved without a major review and slimming down in the number of examinations taken by students.

But they have been heartened by a pledge made by David Miliband, the new minister for Schools, when he addressed the National Association of Head Teachers' conference last week that the time had come for a "national debate" on government plans for reforming secondary education.