Edexcel qualifications director Paul Sokoloff had said on Radio 5s breakfast programme on Monday (21 January) that the mistakes were down to printing errors.

But Edexcel head of external communication Beryl Jeffreys said: "Paul was referring to an in-house print error rather than an error made by our printers.

"If youve got 10 pages to print, thats what you print. A printer wouldnt know if there was 12 pages thats down to the person who sent the pages out."

Edexcel came under fire after it emerged that there had been an error in an AS-level maths paper and a Level 2 key skills communications exam paper, which had pages missing.