Caretaker Education Minister Chaturon Chaisang yesterday said he would not step down to take responsibility for the O-Net and A-Net scoring fiasco, which has shaken about 300,000 12th-grade students across the country.

"Were I not the caretaker, I would have pondered it [resignation]. I would have certainly done more than offer my apology," Chaturon said, when asked whether he would follow in the steps of the National Institute of Education Testing Service chief Khunying Sumontha Promboon, who submitted her resignation on Monday.

Sumontha said her resignation would take effect after the scoring problems were solved so she could ensure the problem was solved smoothly. She said she resigned to take responsibility for the mess.

The failure of the testing system to produce results has affected the schedules of many universities, forcing some of them to postpone the start of the next semester. Nine medical institutes have had to delay announcing the names of the students eligible for their freshman classes.

Chaturon yesterday admitted the problems at the testing service showed he had been negligent but said if he resigned it would do more harm than good.

"If I resign, there will be no supervisor for the problem-solving process," he said as he inspected the re-scoring of O-Net [Ordinary National Educational Test] and A-Net [Advanced National Educational Test] answer sheets at the Higher Education Commission.

Earlier this month, the testing service twice voided the O-Net and A-Net scores it had announced, due to technical and other errors. This is the first year that the O-Net and A-Net scores have been used as university-admission criteria.

Commission secretary-general Pavich Thongroj said more than 100 computers were used in the re-scoring process.

Chulalongkorn University's Faculty of Engineering has provided new software to ensure accuracy for the re-scoring. Chaturon said after receiving full explanations from him, Pavich and Sumontha, the Cabinet offered moral support to finish the task.

Pavich said the re-scoring for the multiple-choice section of all answer sheets would be completed by tomorrow.

He said a main problem found during the re-scoring was that some test-takers had failed to put their national identification numbers on the papers correctly.

"We are tracing them," Pavich said. Chaturon affirmed that both the O-Net and A-Net scores would be announced by April 30.