THE future of 123 Blackpool students hangs in the balance as they await the results of a massive re-mark of exam papers this week.

And college bosses fear there could be many more.

The Blackpool Sixth Form College pupils received lower than expected grades for A Level English and principal Jeff Holland took the bold step of asking for a re-mark.

He explained what alerted his suspicions: "We had no grade A's in English -- which is unheard of for us. In a good year we usually have around 30 grade A's and in a bad year, at least 15.

"So I decided to take it up with the examining board, AQA (Assessment and Qualifications Alliance)."

He said the college initially paid for the re-marking of a sample of seven scripts and when four of them were upgraded, the board agreed to re-mark 123 scripts and apologised.

"Of course I am delighted for the students but feel very dismayed that it is taking so long to sort out," he said. "Going by the sample, some 60 or 70 pupils could be looking at an upgrade, which may change their future.

"A lot of university places hang on this decision, I wish they could speed things up."

When asked about the pupils' reaction he said: "On the day of the results they were very upset. I assured them and their parents I would investigate the matter and informed their intended universities of the situation.

A spokesperson from the Manchester office of the AQA said: "At present there has only been four upgrades at the college and they were no bigger than one upgrade each. The college was originally arguing that their pupils were two grades lower than had been predicted.

"English is a very subjective field to mark and one person's opinion may vary to another." Further investigations revealed strikingly similar problems in other establishments across the area.

Head of academic studies at Blackpool and the Fylde College in Ashfield Road, Jean Nettleship, is facing similar problems with A level History results. She said: "We have had exceptionally poor results in our history exams. This is very unusual and the students in question all recieved very high grades in all other subjects.

"We have put in seven appeals and are awaiting a response from AQA. If these are upgraded then there will be a further 16 put forward."

Headmaster of Blackpool's Arnold School, William Gillen, said: "On the whole we haven't experienced a major problem and both our A level and GCSE results were excellent. But we have had a couple of English papers re-marked, as we didn't think the mark did the student justice."

Similarly, Julian Wilde, head of Lytham's King Edward VII School, said: "By and large we have been satisfied with the standard of A level and GCSE results, but we have had some queries with A/S level exams and have asked for a complete batch of English Literature papers to be looked at again."