AS soon as this summer’s GCSE results were published, our phones began ringing with expressions of concern from local schools.

The goal-posts had been moved on the way English papers had been graded, was the passionate cry. Pass rates had gone down – not marginally, but significantly – and something was clearly wrong.

It went on to be confirmed that the goal-posts had indeed been moved.

Exam regulators Ofqual admitted that grade boundaries for the June exams were made tougher than for those who took the test in January, when the marking was deemed to be too lenient.

Ofqual’s order to examiners to change the boundaries came only two weeks before the results were published, shattering expectations, and sending the plans of many youngsters into disarray. That cannot be fair.

On top of that, we now have a situation where pupils in England could end up with lower grades for exactly the same work as their counterparts in Wales after the Welsh government yesterday ordered the June papers to be regraded.

It is a complete mess. If youngsters had made such a pig’s ear of an exam as Ofqual have made of the grading policy, they could expect to fail badly.

Welsh Education Minister Leighton Andrews has promised downgraded youngsters a “swift resolution of injustice”.

Education Secretary Michael Gove, meanwhile, refuses to intervene on behalf of pupils facing the same injustice in England.

That disparity is surely untenable.