A comprehensive school pupil is having a wasted year after missing out on a place at Cambridge University because of exam board mistakes.

Joe Swarbrick, 19, a former pupil at Peers School in Littlemore, Oxford, should now be studying for a degree at Pembroke College, Cambridge.

But he has been forced to put his academic life on hold because of mistakes made by two examination boards.

Peers School headteacher Chris Dark criticised the Assessments and Qualifications Alliance (AQA) and Oxford, Cambridge and RSA (OCR) exam boards for marking errors which denied Joe, from Lake Street, Oxford, the grades he needed to start his English Literature course.

Mr Swarbrick, who has ten GCSEs at grade A or A*, was expected to obtain three As in his A-levels last summer. But staff at the Sandy Lane West school were shocked when his results showed him scoring Bs in French, English and History, and demanded a re-count.

Almost eight weeks later, after repeated inquiries from the school, it was found that the boards had made mistakes, and raised his English and history grades to As.

The delay cost Mr Swarbrick his place at Cambridge. Although he was offered another place when the mistakes came to light, he must now wait until October to take it up.

He has been filling in time by working in Morton's sandwich shop on Broad Street, and practising with his rock band, Sexy Breakfast.

He said: "I was chuffed to get a place at Cambridge, and was disappointed when I got my results.

"I have ended up having a year out, but didn't have any plans, which is annoying. If I'd have known earlier, I could have gone off round the world.

"I can't see how the boards could have got my results so wrong. In English I picked up 24 extra points in the re-mark.

"I wonder whether enough training is given to people marking papers. I have sympathy with the markers but would like to see higher standards.

"Anybody that comes out with much lower results than they thought they deserved, should go for a re-mark."

Mr Dark said: "Joe is a lad at a city comprehensive who has been done a disservice by two exam boards. He is starting at Cambridge a year late through no fault of his own.

"He is the first student from Peers to go to Oxbridge for eight years, and he very nearly didn't make it at all.

"We told the boards that it was a travesty he had got Bs in his subjects and that we didn't feel it was right. He went from having three Bs to two As and a B, but the correct results came back too late for him to start his course.

"We live in a time when so much hinges on the fine detail of grades that efforts have to be made to get them right. They must be cross-checked and correct."

George Turnbull, a spokesman for AQA, was unable to comment on Mr Swarbrick's individual case, but said 98 per cent of scripts were re-marked within 30 days.

He said: "The markers are trained adequately, but last year was a particularly difficult one for all examination boards, and more markers were needed than ever before.

"If we have fallen short of what was expected of us, we can only apologise."

OCR spokesman Mary Derraine said the board did not receive the request until September 7, and took just seven days to re-mark the paper. She added: "We are desperately sorry for the lad, but these things happen. We are asked to re-mark less than five per cent of papers, which is not a very high percentage."

The criticisms follow a series of complaints about the Edexcel examinations board which could lose its contract after being accused of serious errors, including setting an impossible maths question.