Read the SchoolGate blog on Ed Balls

Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, faced a barrage of questions on the national tests marking fiasco in the House of Commons today but he refused to intervene or apologise for the delays to millions of results.

Mr Balls was answering an emergency question before the parliamentary recess today and told MPs that the quality of marking in this year’s tests for 11 and 14-year-olds was “at least as good” as previous years. This is despite a torrent of complaints from teachers who say the quality of marking is inconsistent. At some schools, papers were even returned unmarked.

Almost a quarter of the English tests taken by 14-year-olds have still not been marked two weeks after they should have been returned to schools, Mr Balls said.

But he claimed an intervention on his part could “jeopardise” the public interest and “compromise accountability” during the sensitive discussion between the Qualifications Curriculum Authority (QCA) and ETS, the company responsible for the marking debacle.

Michael Gove, Shadow Schools Secretary said the “terrible fiasco” had “blighted” the summer holidays for thousands of 11 and 14-year-olds.

Mr Balls said ETS had now released the results of 98 per cent of the exams taken by 11-year-olds and 88 per cent of those taken by 14-year-olds.

Some 94.1 per cent of maths scripts and 93.4 per cent of science exams had been marked but 23.1 per cent of English papers for 14-year-olds have yet to come under the markers’ scrutiny.

David Laws, Liberal Democrat Schools spokesman said: “This latest information shows that the marking of the Key Stage tests remains a shambles.”

The QCA is in discussion with ETS Europe about the “unacceptable delays,” Mr Balls told MPs in a written update earlier today. “Those discussions are highly sensitive - legally and financially - and ... it is very important that the QCA should be allowed to conclude them in a timely and orderly fashion in order to safeguard the interests of pupils, schools and taxpayers.

“Ministerial intervention, at this stage, would be totally inappropriate and would jeopardise the public interest.”

Conservative leader David Cameron yesterday demanded that the Government cut ties with ETS.

He also insisted ETS should forfeit any pay-off due to the marking delays, which have left hundreds of thousands of pupils across England in the dark over their results.

Mr Balls defended the continuation of the national tests. He said: “We must not return to the past situation where school accountability was weak, parents lacked good information about their child’s progress, and as a result many children fell behind in their education and development.”

But he also came under fire today from the Children Schools and Families committee for ignoring their recommendations on testing.

Barry Sheerman, chairman of the committee, said: "It is a pity that the Government has not taken this opportunity to make a commitment to reform the national testing system in order to ensure that children and teachers get the most out of their education experience."

Keith Bartley chief executive of the General Teaching Council, the body which gave evidence to the cross party group of MPs said: “The Government’s response to the select committee report does not offer any real prospect of alleviating the high stakes nature of the current system; it is therefore difficult to see how the proposed guidance to schools on avoiding over-preparation and ‘teaching to the test’ can be really helpful."

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