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Exam board wins Sats contract
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Exam board Edexcel has been awarded the one-year contract to deliver next year's Sats tests, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority confirmed.
The contract will be worth £25 million, and covers the national curriculum tests for 11 year olds as well as other non-statutory tests.
The announcement comes as it was revealed that examiners warned the Schools Secretary Ed Balls that there is "no guarantee" that pupils will not see a repeat of delays for Sats tests results again next year.
Edexcel replaces American firm ETS Europe which was dumped from its £156 million five-year contract in August following this summer's marking fiasco, which affected a million schoolchildren. A damning inquiry into the delays, led by Lord Sutherland of Houndwood and published earlier this month, heaped blame on the QCA and ETS.
Edexcel, which was announced as the preferred bidder for next year's contract two weeks ago, originally delivered the tests before ETS.
Jerry Jarvis, managing director of Edexcel, said: "We are proud to have been chosen by the QCA to deliver the national curriculum tests in 2009.
"We understand that efficient results and quality of marking are very important to students, parents and teachers and have reassembled the team which successfully delivered the contract in 2005, 2006 and 2007."
Some pupils were left waiting months for their marks from the exams sat by 11 to 14 year olds this summer after a series of blunders including a failure to train markers on time. Mr Balls has since scrapped the tests for 14 year olds, with immediate effect.
It was revealed that in a letter to Mr Balls, the QCA warned that the rush to appoint a new company to run tests for 11 year olds in 2009 has meant there is no time to test the marking systems to ensure they do not collapse again.
Edexcel have agreed to deliver 99.9% of test results to candidates by July 7 next year. But chief executive Ken Boston - writing to the minister before his suspension in mid-December in the wake Lord Sutherland's inquiry - warned "that whilst the supplier is committed to achieving it (the deadline), there is currently no guarantee that events will not cause them to miss it".
