Exams body admits to AS level marking blunder

An English examination marking body has admitted that pupils at a Derry school were given the wrong exam results following an administrative blunder.

Following a query made by the school questioning their students’ poor performance, 18 out of 22 English literature students at Dominican College in Portstewart, Co Derry, had their AS-Level grades upgraded, some rising from an E to an A.

The English-based examination body, Edexcel, blamed an administration error for giving out the wrong marks and apologised for the distress to parents and pupils who had to wait a month for the results to be corrected.

The mix-up is the latest in a series of mistakes made by English examination boards in both A-Levels and the new AS-Levels.

The SDLP assembly member for East Derry, John Dallat, has criticised the blunder made by the examination body. He said: “Dominican College in Portstewart is one of the prestigious schools in the country. It is a centre of excellence, and the blunder by the examination body, if it had not been detected, could have had a devastating effect on the pupils concerned. Some of the grades when queried rose from an E to an A. This is a fundamental error.

“Perhaps it is time that the British Minister for Education began to assess the professionalism of this examination body to ensure mistakes like this never occur again.”

The English boards have been criticised over their marking performance, in a year when the new AS levels brought a much heavier workload for teachers and pupils.

The examination boards are said to have had problems recruiting enough teachers to do the marking. (AMcE)