PUBLIC confidence in A-levels has plummeted and young people's futures have possibly been blighted by the mounting crisis in education. All this has the makings of a major scandal.

Ever since Prime Minister Tony Blair famously declared that his top three priorities would be "education, education and education", children have been put under increasing pressure to achieve.

Placing such emphasis on education was right and proper - but it has not come without a cost. Head teachers now claim the exam boards statistically manipulated pupils' marks to reduce the number of top grades. Amid such heated uncertainty, Education Secretary Estelle Morris has announced two independent inquiries into the way A-levels are graded. Those looking into this affair have much important and swift work to do.

As many questions surround this matter as are to be found on an A-level exam paper. Did someone issue an order that the exams should be marked down? And, if so, who? More importantly, what is to happen to those pupils whose future could have been blighted by having grades reduced? Will universities reconsider students whose results might have been altered? And, not least, who is to blame for this awful mess?

One certainty amid all this is that the victims are young people who have worked hard to achieve their best, and may well now feel tainted by failure. This is massively unfair.

Children are now tested as never before, pushed through the mill of evaluations and exams from the age of seven onwards, forced to sit an unrelenting round of tests.

One consequence is that children simply sit far too many exams. As one York head teacher pointed out yesterday, the exam boards do not appear able to cope with all the extra work. Such fears would seem to be supported by the news that the English SATS papers from some York schools had to be sent back to be remarked.

A pressure-cooker culture now exists in education and an over-heated system is in danger of damaging the very people all this effort was meant to benefit. Our young people deserve better than this.

Updated: 09:24 Friday, September 20, 2002