International school students in Hong Kong have been hit in a series of blunders by an exam board which has already faced government censure in Britain. English Schools Foundation (ESF) schools have suffered from a catalogue of errors by Edexcel, one of three boards that administers public exams in England and Wales and the major board serving international schools abroad. Edexcel is facing demands by British headteachers that it be sacked, and it has been labelled 'unacceptable' and 'sloppy' by the Prime Minister's office. Last Friday schools in Hong Kong were the first to spot an error in a maths AS-level exam set by the board. This week, the board added to its woes by omitting one page from a communications AS-level paper due to be sat by 1,000 candidates in the county of Kent. The blunders are the latest in a series which first affected Hong Kong students in last summer's AS-levels. The ESF's education officer for secondary schools, David West, said a batch of coursework and practical exam results were lost and students were found to have been given wrong marks. One business studies candidate at West Island School had his mark for one module revised from 61 - the equivalent of a grade D, which is a fail - to 102, equivalent to grade A. Edexcel blamed a 'clerical error' for the discrepancy. The mistakes here affected students in business studies, psychology, drama and design and technology AS-levels last summer. 'Although our results were very good we have had problems that have not all been sorted out,' said Mr West. In the UK, Education and Skills Secretary Estelle Morris demanded quick answers to how 'basic errors' affecting thousands of students had occurred. A senior official from the exams watchdog, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), has been assigned to Edexcel to sort out its problems before the summer exams. The QCA is also rushing through publication of an audit already carried out on the board. The mistake in last week's decision maths paper was an incorrect diagram. It was first discovered in Hong Kong, where the exam was sat eight hours ahead of Britain due to the time difference. Ann Shaw, deputy head of the German Swiss International School's international section, immediately notified Edexcel. The board has since been criticised for failing to tell exam centres in England and Wales of the error. Prime Minister Tony Blair's spokesman said: 'What has happened here is sloppy, to say the least, because it would appear that the exam board itself knew some four hours before the exam was to be sat that there was a problem, but the schools were not told and the exam went ahead.' Mr West said: 'There should not be a mistake, ever. The quality control of the board should ensure there never is.' Edexcel's international liaison officer Elizabeth Lowen flew to Hong Kong this week to hear of ESF schools' complaints. Mr West and ESF chief executive Jennifer Wisker will also meet Edexcel's chief executive when in London next month. West Island School principal Brian Driver said the school had asked for its business studies papers to be entirely remarked and was still awaiting the final grades for candidates. 'When errors are identified it leaves questions as to whether there are errors in the others,' he said. 'It is not acceptable. There have been too many mistakes.' In another incident, the board reportedly lost the practical results for drama candidates at Island School, after it had sent an examiner to Hong Kong to watch the performances they had prepared for the exam. As a result, it told the school it would base the results on their written work only. King George V School was not satisfied with its psychology results and requested scripts be remarked. But the board admitted it had lost the coursework of 14 students, which has delayed the notification of revised grades. Design and technology teachers across the ESF complained to the board about grammar mistakes and the poor quality of photographs in an exam paper. The board had apologised and expressed 'regret', Mr West said. Mr Driver said that teachers had been annoyed and shocked when they had seen results that did not match expectations. Students had been affected as they had made choices about subjects to take for their A2 exams - the second part of the new British A-levels - based on their AS results. 'They may have decided to throw in the towel and do something else, based on low marks,' said Mr Driver. 'There is nothing that can be done about that now.' He added, however, that Edexcel were working closely with the school to rectify errors. But Mr West said that the ESF had no plans to change boards, because Edexcel was the main one offering A-levels to international schools. 'We have invested time and money in getting teachers trained for the specifications of this board.' The ESF was paying $200,000 for chief examiners in 11 different subjects to visit Hong Kong to provide training in the new A-level courses and to ensure the exams run more smoothly in the summer, he said. A spokeswoman for Edexcel told Education Post: 'We have an excellent relationship with the English Schools Foundation and are working closely with them to resolve these issues. Our International Operations Manager is currently in Hong Kong to work through these issues.' She said it was hard to comment on individual cases because the board had been inundated with so many queries in the wake of publicity over the errors. Edexcel also administers GCSE exams sat by ESF candidates, but the mistakes appear to have been confined to the AS-levels, introduced last summer as the first part of Britain's revamped A-levels. 'We are dealing with new courses and a big expansion in the number of exams offered,' said Mr West. Overall, he said, the ESF had been pleased with the results obtained by the first students sitting the AS-levels. The German Swiss International School was also pleased. Ms Shaw said she understood that Edexcel was having 'teething problems' with the new AS-levels. Complaints at Edexcel far outstrip those against the two other UK exam boards. In a survey by the Association of Colleges, 66 per cent said its performance in 2000/2001 was poor or very poor, compared with nine per cent for AQA and three per cent for OCR. Graphic: MIS26GAN
