Software bug leaves schoolkids with wrong exam results

A database glitch at The Northern Exam Board (NEB) forced it to issue amended GCSE results to schools this morning. Thousands of teenagers in the Midlands have been affected and NEB has admitted full responsibility.

The board develops all its software internally, and this summer introduced a new system for grading coursework modules completed during the school year. The software was designed to recalculate marks for the modules so that they comprised 25 per cent of the total GCSE grade. But something went wrong with the scaling program.

Helen Hallett, the board's senior officer, told Silicon: "We had to develop new software for our science modules, to cope with a tiering structure introduced by the government. The humanities course required new software too, because it was a new course for us. No other courses were affected."

The board's computing division refused to give out details of the programming language and platform it uses, but a full inquiry has begun.

"We will send out the amended results to schools today," Hallett said. "If a student's mark goes down, we will let them keep the mistaken grade. Otherwise, we will mark them up." Hallett stressed that only borderline candidates are affected.

The board's report will be passed on to the regulator - The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority.