A new book by University of Cambridge professors has sharply criticized England’s exam boards system as being “bizarre” and “untenable”.

The book, Reinventing Schools, Reforming Teaching, is written by John Bangs, former head of education at the National Union of Teachers, and John MacBeath and Maurice Galton, both professors at the University of Cambridge’s Faculty of Education.

The book is the first detailed analysis of New Labour’s educational policy, and contains a number of interviews with former and current education ministers.

Among the interviews that have generated the most attention is one with Mick Waters, former Director of Curriculum at the Qualifications and Curriculum Agency, who says that exam boards are “diseased” and “almost corrupt”.

Mr Waters suggests that, in an attempt to persuade teachers to choose their syllabus, exam boards try to present their exams as the easiest. According to him, exam boards convince schools and students they will pass if they purchase and use their textbooks, an assertion from which the boards ultimately profit.

Additionally, Mr Waters accuses exam boards of “insider dealing”, alleging that head examiners, who go on to mark examination papers, give pupils advice for answering questions in the textbooks they have written.

Mr Waters argues that Ofqual (the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation) lacks the courage to deal with this issue. In response to these accusations, Ofqual have revealed they would investigate allegations of “insider dealing”, if supplied with evidence.

In England, the three main examining bodies are AQA, Edexcel and OCR. Professor John MacBeath, co-author of the book, considers it a “bizarre system” to have “numerous agencies in competition for business in an area as sensitive and critical as examination.”

According to Professor MacBeath, “While the language of ‘corruption’ is strong it seems to me untenable to maintain a system in which there is a free competitive market vying for business among clients and adjusting attainment scores on a normative basis.”

Professor MacBeath believes that there is a simple solution to fix the problems ailing the exam board system: “One national examining body whose purpose and function is to exam not ‘deal’ and to be directly accountable to the Department of Education”.