Tony Blair has defended the system of A Levels after the Conservative leader claimed they "were not worth the paper they are written on".

In a highly charged session of prime minister's questions, Blair also attacked Iain Duncan Smith after he called on the government to scrap AS Levels.

Following the recent exams fiasco, Duncan Smith said it was time to abolish the two-year-old qualification.

"He has in front of him all the evidence from parents and teachers and even from all the assessments that have been made," he said.

Forum Response: Association of Teachers and Lecturers

Gwen Evans, deputy general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, told ePolitix.com: "We at ATL are bored with Conservative opportunism and their adversarial approach. If Ian Duncan Smith thought he was electable he would be saying something more intelligent.

"For a democrat to overlook the 99 per cent of young people whose A Levels were correct, suggests the need for a refresher course in numeracy."

Forum Response: Universities UK

Diana Warwick, chief executive of Universities UK, told ePolitix.com: "Universities are keen to admit applicants with the broadest range of qualifications and we welcomed Curriculum 2000, including the new AS levels and key skillsqualifications, when first proposed. We also responded to the Government's recent Green Paper on 14-19 Education and look forward to seeing the outcome of this consultation."

Forum Response: Professional Association of Teachers

Alison Johnston, senior professional officer for PAT, told ePolitix.com: "The government must act now to restore confidence in the A Level system and to make sure that the current problems cannot happen again.

"For the sake of students, parents and teachers, we would like to see an end to the political point-scoring and hype that have seen the value of all A Level students' qualifications questioned by politicians and the media. Nothing can be more soul-destroying for students who have worked hard than the suggestion that their qualifications are not worthwhile.

"We welcome the announcement by QCA chief executive Dr Ken Boston that an Examinations Task Force will be set up to address the problems encountered in recent weeks.

"The debate on the future of post-16 qualifications must be considered and measured and pursue all the options. Schools, students and parents do not need knee-jerk reactions, and the education secretary must resist pressures for quick-fix measures to scrap the current system in favour of something else.

"There is already an alternative system - the International Baccalaureate - that schools can use if they so wish.

"We are in favour of a more flexible curriculum that can develop the skills and meet the needs of all pupils. We would also like to see fewer exams, as students are currently over-tested.

"We would welcome the opportunity to be involved in any debate on the future of education for our 16 -19 year olds. PAT has always advocated the need for a broader curriculum, which, of course, was the purpose of AS levels. We will follow with interest the pilot study in Wales which is looking at a baccalaureate approach."

Personal opinion of Tony Millns - chief executive of ARELS

Tony Millns, member of the OCR Standards Committee and former member of the SCAA and QCA management teams until 1999, told ePolitix.com: "The change to the A level exams was welcomed universally (by politiciansincluding David Blunkett, by teacher associations, and by the media) in 1996 when Ron Dearing produced his report.

"But this report was shelved because the Conservatives felt they could not proceed before the 1997 General Election.

"Labour re-ran the consultation which Dearing had conducted, and not surprisingly got the same answers.

"But it was not until mid-1998 that the Government decided to go ahead with the changes - and effectively it wanted them introduced on the original timescale. It also neglected all the Dearing cautions about piloting the new exams and running the old and new systems in parallel for a time to establish comparable standards.

"All the evidence is that when a major change is made to the examinations system (such as combining O level and CSE into GCSE in 1986-90) the new exams take a good while to bed down, and it is genuinely hard in the earlydays to establish and maintain standards.

"The introduction of the new AS and A2 was rushed and there was no coherent guidance on the standard for AS in particular, leaving the examination boards with a near-impossible job to do and an over-reliance on statisticalmethods of setting grade boundaries. In the circumstances it is extremely surprising that the problems were not greater than they have been.

"A further radical change, to a new baccalaureat system, is simply unrealistic within five years, and such a change should ideally be piloted and introduced gradually if it happens at all. Otherwise, there will simply be an even bigger disaster. In many ways, a move to free examining from political control, by setting up a public interest company (The Examinations Board for England) and a regulatory authority (let's call it OfQual) would be welcome, but achieving anything like consensus on this would clearly take years as well. So at present, there is no alternative but to ensure that the AS and A2 system works as well as possible.

Forum Response: Institute of Directors

Ruth Lea, head of the policy unit at the IoD, told ePolitix.com: "A levels used to be testing and highly discriminatory - gold standards selecting undergraduates for a highly selective university system - not any more.

"They are now designed for an age of mass entrance into universities. As the university system has changed so have A levels; they have quite simply been dumbed down".