An exam board faces a £350,000 fine after more than 1,500 students received incorrect GCSE grades on results day last year.
The error affected pupils taking WJEC's Eduqas GCSE food preparation and nutrition qualification.
Ofqual, England's exams watchdog, found that exam board WJEC had failed to properly adjust teachers' marking of coursework – which made up 50% of the qualification – to ensure results were in line with national standards.
In total, 847 students received lower grades than they deserved, while 680 received higher grades than they should have.
The students who received the incorrect lower grades were eventually issued with the correct grade in October last year.
WJEC decided those who received the incorrect higher grades should keep them to avoid unfairly penalising students.
The exams regulator will fine the exam board £175,000 for the error in external moderation of teachers' marking.
Ofqual will also fine WJEC another £175,000 after it found it had breached its conditions concerning how it conducted “reviews of marking”.
Between 2017 and 2023, WJEC allowed 3,926 exam papers to be reviewed by the same assessors who had originally marked at least part of them.
One student had their grade increased last year after an independent review of marking was conducted.
WJEC issued credit notes as financial compensation to schools and colleges for all affected reviews, totalling just over £219,000.
The announcement comes just weeks before A-level and GCSE students receive their results this summer.
Amanda Swann, Ofqual's executive director for general qualifications, said: "Students must be able to trust that their results accurately reflect their performance and what they know, understand and can do.
“These proposed fines reflect the serious nature of WJEC’s failures and our commitment to protecting the interests of students, and maintaining the integrity of our qualifications system.
“This includes the requirement that GCSE, AS and A-level students are entitled to an independent review of their exam marks.”
A statement from WJEC said: "We would like to sincerely apologise to the learners affected by these incidents. We take full responsibility and acknowledge that we did not meet the usual high standards expected of us."
“Having co-operated fully with Ofqual throughout the process, we want to reassure learners and centres that we have undertaken a thorough review of our processes and implemented appropriate measures to ensure such incidents do not occur again in the future.
“The measures we successfully introduced in 2024 have proven effective.
“In addition, as part of the corrective action taken to mitigate the issue, we can confirm that we have issued credit notes to all centres affected by the reviews of marking incident.”
(PA) Note: This article has been edited with the help of Artificial Intelligence.
