MORE than 40 promising students are having their A-levels re-marked as a headteacher claimed the downgrading row could become a national scandal.

Som former independent school sixth-formers from East Lancashire will have to go to their second-choice universities after their grades failed to match expectations.

Dr David Hempsall, headteacher of Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Blackburn, said: "I believe this may be a scandal."

QEGS has sent back the A-level coursework papers of 21 former students who left in the summer. Stonyhurst College, near Clitheroe, has returned 20 and Westholme School, Blackburn, half a dozen.

Dr Hempsall said: "I feel intensely disappointed for students who failed to get into their first-choice university by a few marks. We simply do not have a system which is sound.

"There was clearly a feeling that exams were getting easier and this has been a very clumsy way of dealing with that accusation."

And Dr Hempsall, who is treasurer of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference, the organisation which represents many of the country's private schools, added: "I believe marks have been depressed -- and even suppressed."

Stonyhurst headmaster Adrian Aylward added: "I have considerable sympathy with the protest. We have already had two students' papers returned which have been upgraded. It's a worrying issue -- I think there may have been attempts at a 'fix'."

Lillian Croston, headteacher at Westholme School, said the school did not use the examining board at the centre of the row -- the Oxford and Cambridge -- but they had nevertheless sent back six borderline papers.

The Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference said it stood ready to back any legal action its members eventually decided to take against examiners alleged to have downgraded A-level coursework results.

The schools are among about 50 nationwide which have protested after candidates failed coursework modules. Exam watchdog the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority said it would look at both statistical evidence and individual cases.

Heads claim examiners awarded more U-grades - failures - this year to prove A-levels have not been dumbed down.

The National Association of Head Teachers and the Secondary heads Association have also called for an urgent inquiry.

A spokeswoman for the Department for Education in London said: "The QCA is investigating and the Secretary of State will want to see the results of that investigation.

"It is utter rubbish to suggest that the Department instructed the QCA the examination board to downgrade exam papers."

The OCR exam board said schools had been warned that A2s, the second half of the new A-levels introduced in September 2002, were meant to be harder than AS-levels.