As confidence evaporates in the exam system after the row over A-level grades, Education Correspondent Lindsay Jennings looks at what could happen next.

THE time for huge debates over the future of A-levels and whether they are getting easier usually centres around results day. August 15 this year was no different to any other year with calls from educationalists that it is far easier now to get a grade A than 20 years ago, followed by angry rebuffs from parents and teachers.

Just a month later, the debate has taken a new twist with the examination system rocked by claims that some students have had their grades deliberately manipulated by the exam boards. From a regular annual debate on standards, the row has plunged the British education system into chaos.

Headteachers are incensed that their students and teachers have had their lives and careers tinkered with, while parents look on in confused horror, wondering if their child will be the next guinea pig in a system which seems to have become one long educational experiment. The confidence in the exam boards is at an all-time low and Labour is facing its most serious education crisis since it came to power in 1997.

The initial report, following the inquiry into the growing grades scandal carried out by former Chief Inspector of Schools Mike Tomlinson, will be handed to Education Secretary Estelle Morris tomorrow. Ms Morris gave Mr Tomlinson a week to talk to key players, gather written evidence and produce a report on whether or not exam boards, under pressure from the exams watchdog the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), manipulated grades. Mr Tomlinson will then move on to consider whether the A-level as a whole is working as it should, and is expected to produce a second report in November.

It is the longer term future of the A-level which is causing concern.

Students and their teachers are still settling in after the changes brought in with Curriculum 2000, which sees students taking AS-level exams at the end of the first year followed by their A2s the year after.

Estelle Morris has added to the controversy by admitting she may be about to scrap the system and replace it with one modelled on the International Baccalaureate (IB). The system is taught in 1,400 schools in 102 countries. It includes 47 private and state schools in Britain, mainly in the south of England.

Students typically study six subjects over two years in the sixth form, including English, maths, a foreign language, a science, a social science, such as history or geography, and a creative subject, such as drama or art.

Three of the six subjects are taken at "standard" level (about the same as AS) and the other three at a "higher" level.

The pressure of over-assessment is taken away as, unlike the present system with AS-levels, there are no external exams at the end of the first year. Supporters say the system is not just about exams, but about creating well-rounded individuals.

But David Dunn, head of independent Yarm School, in Teesside, says there needs to be a comprehensive review to decide what we need from the system first - not a knee-jerk reaction.

"We need to ask what is testing at 18 all about. Are we testing to see how much they have actually learned? Are we testing whether they should go to the best university or one which is average? Until we have that honest debate we cannot move forward because people have too many vested interests.

"The one thing I am concerned about is that the next change has to be far better considered. Every time we get a change it hasn't really properly gone to consultation and they don't resource it properly."

Like many headteachers, David Dunn has his reservations about the baccalaureate and says he would be reluctant to move to it until it was more widely accepted. "I think at the moment heads are particularly attracted to its independence from the QCA and independence of government and that it has fewer examinations," he says.

"It does have breadth, but then it is quite prescribed breadth. It is maths, it is science, it is a language and that is fine if is suits you. What we do need is something we can have confidence in and I don't think we are ever going to have confidence in the system we have now."

What educationalists do agree on, is that the old "gold standard" A-levels were at one time trusted by schools, students, universities and employers. Britain had one of the best education systems in the world.

Professor Carol Fitzgibbon, head of the Curriculum, Evaluation and Management Centre at Durham University, believes the current row over grades fixing should not mean the death of the A-level.

"The A-level system has worked very well and England has led the world," she says. "But it wasn't the government who invented them, it was the universities who invented them as a selection process for their institutions. Since A-levels have been taken over by politicians, they have been changed and made more confusing. Teachers have been angered teachers in that as soon as they're used to one thing they get another, and the students feel as if they've been part of an experiment instead of a great exam system. The politicians meddle when they have not got the expertise."

According to Prof Fitzgibbon, the answer lies in giving the exam back to the universities instead of travelling down the baccalaureate route.

She says: "We're in a bit of an educational crisis but I don't think the solution is with the bacclaureate. The important thing for students is not what grade they have but what have they learned. The universities are particularly concerned with that because they have to pick them up at that stage.

"The idea that we should have one single examination is ridiculous. Who's going to set the syllabus? I don't think there's enough choice and diversity in the IB in a modern economy. The universities are at the cutting edge of knowledge and only they have the diversity already built in. What we need to do is ask what do people need in a modern economy and who can provide that training. Universities are wide enough to provide that wide range of training. I think the baccalaureate would be a backwards step. It doesn't offer enough choice."

The one aspect which has come out of the grades scandal is that it is the young lives of future generations which are at stake and according to David Dunn, that should not be forgotton.

"I think we have to be clear what the purpose of education is and it's not just about qualifications. It's about preparing people for life," he says.