THE company at the centre of the national exam marking fiasco which affected schools in Worcester has had its contract scrapped.

ETS Europe had a five-year contract with the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) to mark school SATs papers.

However, it failed to deliver the results to schools on time and many students broke-up for the summer holidays without knowing their marks.

Your Worcester News reported this week how Christopher Whitehead Language College headteacher Neil Morris said he had no faith in the exam marking system after some of his pupils received poor results in the key stage three tests.

Worcester MP Mike Foster welcomed the announcement and said an independent inquiry into the fiasco would still go ahead.

“Their performance was unacceptable and it was only right and proper something happened,” he said.

“The announcement is probably going to be well received by schools and teachers and parents. We can all point the finger at ETS. “They have accepted that they did not deliver, but the inquiry will continue to see if there is any other lessons to be learnt.”

The £156 million contract was awarded to ETS in February last year and was due to run until 2012.

ETS will be paying £19.5 million to the QCA and an additional £4.6 million for the cancellation of invoices and other charges.

Details of arrangements for next year’s tests, which are taken by 11 and 14-year-olds, will be announced in the autumn.

Pershore High School headteacher Clive Corbett welcomed the news but questioned whether the sats were a necessary exam for students.

His school only received its English key stage three papers a week ago and are questioning the marking of it.

“Although getting rid of the company has dealt with the problem we have to think about whether we need this system,” he said.

He made comparisons with schools in Sweden and Finland, which have high educational standards and retain youngsters in the system for longer than English schools.

“There they look bemused when I talk about a national test system, they have a teacher assessment,” he said.

“I think that is what we have to think about.”

ETS will continue working on this year’s tests to deliver results to schools and ensure that schools have complete sets of results.