Michael Howard wants to see a return to the old ways

Tory leader Michael Howard proposes going back to the system that used to exist until the early 1980s.

Only a fixed proportion of A-level students would be awarded A grades - and state schools could offer O-levels.

The Tomlinson report proposes new diplomas, with the main components evolving from existing qualifications.

Mike Tomlinson has sought to build a consensus for his plans

The review recommends less coursework and fewer exams but, at advanced level, tougher questions to stretch the brightest pupils.

Everyone would have to have the "core" English and maths skills businesses say children often lack.

But, in a speech to the Society of Editors in Newcastle, Mr Howard said the most important issue was to restore public confidence in the examination system.

"We must restore public confidence, strengthen the robustness of our exams, rebuild the international reputation of our exam boards, challenge the most able, and provide much more encouragement for those at all levels of ability," he said.

He said the AS-level, sat in the lower sixth year, should be abolished, with A-levels returned to a two-year course.

Limit on A grades

Mr Howard wants exam boards to stop using "criterion referencing", introduced by his party in the 1980s, which allows more than a set percentage of candidates to achieve the top grade.

"Instead, we will ensure that the highest grade of A-level should only be awarded to a fixed proportion of students sitting that subject that year."

The Secondary Heads Association has said it is time the Conservative party and other critics recognise that young people and their teachers are doing better nowadays.

"This is a matter for congratulation, not for turning the clock back," said the general secretary, John Dunford.

Michael Howard says some people think that exams have been "dumbed down", others that pupils have got smarter and teachers better.

"It is a debate that is often conducted as a shouting match between two mutually uncomprehending camps, each unable or unwilling to accept that there may be any validity at all in the other's point of view," he said.

"The truth, of course, lies somewhere in between."

O-levels

He also said there should be no restraint on state schools' entering their pupils for O-level exams.

"It is clearly absurd that O-levels continue to be written in the UK for students abroad, but cannot be taken by state school pupils in the UK," he said.

GCSEs should not be scrapped, but reformed to make them "more rigorous and more credible".

"The Tomlinson report believes that we should move away from external assessment at 16. We do not," Mr Howard told editors.

"We propose instead a more robust, more vigorous, more independent regime of external assessment, with incentives throughout for accurate, rather than convenient, results."

And he reiterated his party's plans to scrap the government's target of getting 50% of under 30s into higher education by 2010.

"Neither the employers' organisations, nor many academics, regard the 50% target as necessary."