More than 100 external verifiers employed by the Business and Technology Education Council to evaluate the quality of vocational A levels in 130 schools in the south-east have been sacked after just five months.

Many hundreds more could lose their jobs as verifiers if the awarding body goes ahead with its plan to reorganise the local structure to meet some of the suggestions in the recent Office of Standards in Education report on vocational education.

BTEC, the largest provider of General National Vocational Qualifications, introduced a new system of verification this month in 130 schools in the south-east for a six-month trial.

External verifiers - usually school teachers and college lecturers - were originally meant to advise schools on new GNVQ courses and examine the work of students and lecturers.

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BTEC case managers are now being recruited to take an advisory role.

Three full-time and one part-time manager will be assisted by 13 part-time specialist advisers on subjects for which there is no existing published material.

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The current external verifiers have been offered Pounds 125 severance for each school visited, and BTEC has said that some will be given new contracts for the more limited function of remote sampling of school portfolios.