Of all the crises that the Government could face, the prospect of another A-Levels Crisis next year would be the worst, so measures that can be taken quickly to restore confidence in the examination system are absolutely vital.

We look forward to the publication of Mike Tomlinson's final report on the A-Level Crisis, but everyone is entitled to ask why the situation was allowed to arise.

By mid-September, five and a half years later, we were in the middle of a full-blown A-Level Crisis; not, as so often in the past, involving allegations of grade inflation, but arbitrary grade boundary rigging to make the achievement of higher grades more difficult.

One of the main responses to this year's A-Level Crisis has been the suggestions - they have come from Her Majesty's Opposition, but have been echoed by bodies throughout education, such as head teachers' organisations and many interested observers - that the only way in which we can tackle the problem and have confidence in the performance of the QCA is if it is clearly and emphatically removed from ministerial control.

we saw it with the A-Level Crisis; and now we have seen it with school funding.