Secretary-general of the Examinations and Assessment Authority, Peter Hill, admitted recently that it would 'take years' to explain the implications of the new grades.

Eddie Ng Hak-kim, a council member of the Institute of Human Resource Management, said the system would give employers a better grasp of an applicant's abilities.

'Under the old system an A indicated good performance, but employers knew nothing beyond that. We didn't know what he or she was good at,' he said.

The new system attaches detailed descriptions to different grades explaining what it meant to obtain a certain mark, making it easier for employers to measure competencies.

But Mr Ng said the exams authority had failed to communicate with employers effectively over it. Seminars explaining the changes should have been organised earlier.

A spokesman for the Small and Medium Enterprises General Association described the new system as confusing.

'We need to know whether Level 1 is the same as getting an E or whether Level 5 is the equivalent of an A,' he said. 'It's not clear.'

Louis Pong Wai-yan, executive director of the Employers' Federation, said that while the system would be 'beneficial in the long run', the authority should communicate better with employers on what it meant to achieve a certain level.

A spokeswoman for the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation said job applicants would be expected to have Level 2 in English, one below the level set by the exams authority as the basic requirement for a clerk.

She said changes in the grading system would have little impact on the bank's recruitment process. 'We don't just look at grades,' she said.

A Cathay Pacific spokesman said the company was looking into the changes to the grading system, but had not yet formed an opinion.

Dr Hill said recently it was likely there would be 'some initial hiccups' caused by the change in the language grading system.

He said that while he believed 'most of those who really need to know will very quickly come up to speed', he conceded it was unlikely everyone understood the implications. 'We are very aware that however many thousands of pamphlets we give out and however many articles there are in newspapers, there is still more to be done. It will take years.'

Dr Hill said that while all the big employer groups knew this information, small employers might not. 'There are some segments of the population who will go to their deathbeds still remembering the system as it was when they were at school,' he said.