The marking of this year’s national curriculum tests for 11 to 14-year-olds has, by any measure, been a shambles. But it would be a mistake to regard the problem as a new one.

Head teachers know only too well that every year there are problems of one kind of another with the marking of the 9.5 million papers sat by 1.2 million students.

Results have been published late before, most notably in 1998 and again in 2004, when the head of the National Assessment Agency resigned after a delay of three months in getting out accurate Key Stage 3 English results.

Many of the problems can be laid squarely at door of ETS Europe, the contractor that took over marking the papers this year on a £150 million, five-year contract.

Problems began to emerge last October when some senior markers resigned because of new approaches to the way that the Key Stage tests would be marked. By early spring, markers were reporting a series of administrative problems, including ETS failing to register their contract details, difficulties in contacting the company by telephone or e-mail, delays in training and the failure of a system for selecting English markers.

Once children had taken the exams there were delays in the papers being sent to markers, some scripts went astray and many markers received the wrong batches of scripts.

In the past, marking was administered by Edexcel, one of the three main examination boards in England. When ETS took over the marking this year it embraced new technology, using online training and verification for markers and for recording results.

In so doing it discarded years of experience and loyalty built up among the workforce of markers, who are mostly part-time teachers trying to earn some extra holiday money (the pay is £3.50 per script, plus a 50p administration fee).

But ETS is not solely to blame.

Given the widely reported problems of ETS in the US, none of this year’s difficulties should have come as a surprise to the key governmental players, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority – the body that is in charge of the exams – and its offshoot, the National Assessment Agency – which is responsible for delivery of the exams. Ken Boston, head of the QCA, was quite rightly apologetic in his appearance before the Children, Schools and Families Select Committee yesterday, but he has still not released the due diligence report on ETS Europe that the QCA conducted before awarding the company the contract. Neither will he publish specific information on the penalties that ETS might face for missing its deadlines.

These things matter to teachers, who spend a good part of every academic year preparing children for the tests on which their school’s reputation is often judged. They also matter to pupils, who are drilled and coached for the tests. And they matter to the pupils’ parents, who are invariably desperate to know how their children are progressing.

This year’s marking shambles will do huge damage to the reputation of the entire system of national curriculum testing and is likely to lead to a massive increase in the number of appeals over grades.

It is a step too far, however, to suggest – as Mick Brookes, the general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, has done – that this year’s shambles should spell the end of the national curriculum tests (formerly known as SATS) altogether. But he is right to suggest that the Government should use this occasion to reconsider whether the national curriculum testing system has become too unwieldy and unworkable.

It is acknowledged widely within the teaching profession and among politicians that some form of national tests at age 11 (the end of Key Stage 2) is needed. But the same cannot be said for Key Stage 3. One simple solution might be to replace the Key Stage 3 tests with internal teacher assessments. Few would miss them, most notably the pupils who regard them increasingly as a complete waste of time.

Explore Education

• Young Times

• Schools

• GCSE & A Level Results

• Good University Guide

• Sunday Times University Guide

• Student

Times recommends

• Somali single mother excels in Britain
• Young children should be taught about sex
• Overhaul of design and art degrees urged