Ms Morris, the former Education Secretary, said that both GCSE and A levels were “ripe for modernisation”. She urged Ruth Kelly, the present Education Secretary, to replace them with a single diploma as proposed by Sir Mike Tomlinson, the former head of Ofsted. Ms Kelly had rejected his recommendations and insisted that “A levels and GCSEs are here to stay”. But Ms Morris said that Ms Kelly should reconsider her decision.

“Somebody once said to me that nobody wants to be the Secretary of State that is known as having abolished A levels. I think there’s another way of looking at that,” Ms Morris told The World at One on BBC Radio 4.

“The 14-19 exam system is now ripe for modernisation, ripe for renewal. I think Ruth has the opportunity to be remembered as the Secretary of State for Education who actually had the courage to grasp that and move ahead.”

Ms Morris was the School Standards Minister during the introduction of the Curriculum 2000 reform of A levels, which split the exam into six units and introduced the AS qualification, worth half an A level.

In 2001, as Education Secretary, she was forced to order an urgent review after head teachers condemned the reforms. Ms Morris apologised to students after admitting that they had faced too many exams. A year later, the first students to complete the Curriculum 2000 A level were engulfed by the “grade-fixing” scandal that contributed to her resignation.

• A poll by The Guardian newspaper shows public opinion is evenly split over whether A levels have become easier since 1985, with nine out of ten people believing radical reforms are needed. Forty-three per cent agreed that the number of subjects studied should be broadened, along the lines of the International Baccalaureate, which has been adopted in many English schools.

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