Education Secretary Michael Gove has attacked Welsh GCSE re-grade

Education Secretary Michael Gove has attacked his Welsh counterpart as "irresponsible and mistaken" for ordering disputed GCSEs to be re-graded.

Education Secretary Michael Gove has been giving evidence to the education select committee's investigation into head teachers' claims of unfair GCSE grades. He told MPs that raising Welsh pupils' grades would "undermine confidence" in the value of their qualifications.

In response the Welsh education minister had said he wanted to resolve an "injustice".

The regarding of the Welsh exams is likely to see some students in Wales being moved up from a D grade to a C grade which is key to allowing them to continue on to A-Levels.

However as Ofqual has refused to change grades in England, it will mean that pupils in England and Wales could have different exam grades for the same marks - which Mr Gove said would weaken the value of GCSEs from Wales in the eyes of employers.

But the Welsh minister hit back at Mr Gove, saying: "It is not our fault that the regulatory system in England is in crisis."

The National Union of Teachers said that Mr Gove had "buried his head in the sand" in refusing to accept the evidence of problems with the exam results.

Mr Gove told MPs that Ofqual had faced a "difficult decision" but he would not intervene with an independent regulator.

Shadow education secretary Steven Twigg has called on Mr Gove to make all correspondence between Ofqual and the Department for Education "publicly available at the earliest opportunity".

News source: BBC Education news