Exams chief faces Sats Commons quiz

Ken Boston, chief executive of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, will appear before an emergency Commons committee meeting.

Results of tests for 11 and 14-year-olds were due to be published last week, but the system has been beset by problems and they are now not due until this week at the earliest.

Some schools are not expected to get their marks before the start of the summer holidays.

Barry Sheerman, chairman of the Childrens, Schools and Families select committee, said: "I didn't concern myself that much with the original news that the results would be delayed by a week. I thought as long as the results are all ok, it's not the end of the world. But as time has gone on, there has been telephone and email traffic and the situation appears to be rather more serious than anyone understood."

The National Assessment Agency has apologised to schools, pupils and parents for the delay, which it blamed on a "serious failure" by the private firm ETS Europe, which has the contract to carry out marking.

It has given assurances that the quality and accuracy of marking would be as good as last year.

But last week Mick Brookes, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said schools were reporting "all kinds of problems" with marking, and warned parents should not rely on Sats results as the sole indicator of their child's progress.

He urged schools to give parents the teachers' assessments of pupils, as well as any Sats results, and advised that these be treated as "provisional".

Former Ofsted chief Lord Sutherland has been appointed to lead an independent inquiry into the delays, and will report back in the autumn.