The Welsh exam board, has admitted giving undue advantage to some teachers who had attended seminars on the information and communication technology GCSE due to be examined on January 17.
The postponement has been ordered following an investigation conducted by Ofqual, the exams regulator, in the wake of the Daily Telegraph investigation into the country’s exam system.
The regulator delivered its report to Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, early this morning. It will be published today and is expected to pave the way for wide-reaching reforms of the exam system.
However, Ofqual has also had to intervene and order more immediate action by postponing a GCSE due to be set next month.
Senior Government sources described the cancelling of an exam as “shocking” and added it will lead to fears of a “rot” in parts of the exam system.
WJEC apologised for the inconvenience and moved to reassure students they will be able to sit the postponed exam in early March.
Gareth Pierce, WJEC chief executive, said: “Once we discovered that information had been given to some, but not all teachers about the scope of topics to be covered in the January exam, we advised Ofqual and the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) immediately.
“We are keen to contact the 11 centres affected as soon as possible, so that they are able to let candidates know about the postponement and reassure them that they will be able to take the postponed exam early in March.
“As always, the interests of candidates are uppermost in our minds.”
Earlier this month, this newspaper found teachers were paying up to £230 a day to attend seminars with chief examiners during which they are advised on exam questions and the exact wording that pupils should use to obtain higher marks.
The advice appears to go far beyond the standard “guidance” and opens exam boards to accusations that they are undermining the purpose of exam syllabuses by encouraging “teaching to the test”.
One chief examiner has been secretly recorded by this newspaper telling teachers which questions their pupils could expect in the next round of exams.
“We’re cheating,” he says. “We’re telling you the cycle [of the compulsory question]. Probably the regulator will tell us off.”
He advised teachers that he was telling them how to “hammer exam technique” rather than the approach of “proper educationalists” to “teach the lot”.
WJEC suspended two of its history examiners – Paul Evans and Paul Barnes – in the wake of the disclosures.
A separate review – into 12 errors made in GCSE and A-Level papers sat in England, Wales and Northern Ireland – will also be published today.
