Pembrokeshire students are being failed by a system that insists schools send exam papers unrecorded in the post - despite English schools doing the exact opposite.

Narberth teenager Natasha Wilson nearly had her university career derailed by a system that is designed to save money, but which means thousands of exam papers go in the post unregistered.

The examiner of her chemistry AS-Level paper had moved house and once  her script left Ysgol Dyffryn Taf in Whitland it vanished into thin air.

Now South Pembrokeshire Assembly Member Angela Burns is lobbying for Wales to be bought in line with England so that other students don't have to go through the same heartache.

"It's a disgrace that Welsh students are putting all this hard work into sitting exams which can then so easily go missing in the post," said Mrs. Burns.

"I was amazed to discover that they didn't go recorded delivery or Track and Trace, it never occurred to me that Government guidelines would force the schools and examining bodies to be so cavalier with such precious post."

For 18-year-old Natasha, who was head girl of her school, the story did have a happy ending and she got into Bath University - but only because of the hard work she put into resitting a paper she probably never needed to take.

In the summer of 2007, Natasha did not gain the grade required for her chosen subject at university, so she put everything into revising for the retake in January 2008.

She cancelled Christmas and spent the holiday cramming for her resit paper only for her exam paper, along with 10 others from the school, to go missing.

The first Natasha and her fellow students knew that the papers had been lost was when they received the results two months later.

The exam board, OCR, gave her an assessed 'C' grade, estimated on the exam she'd taken the previous summer.

So instead of taking just her final A-Level papers in June she also had to retake the chemistry AS-Level paper - and she proved the examiners wrong by getting an 'A' grade.

All 11 students from Ysgol Dyffryn Taf whose papers went missing re-sat the exam paper and they all got higher grades than their assessed ones.

Her parents, Ivan Wilson and Lynne Baylis, who own the Celtic Vision photographic shop in Narberth, were shocked by the whole situation.

"The school is not allowed to send the papers by recorded delivery or registered post which is ridiculous and totally unsatisfactory," said Lynne.

"On investigation I found out that schools in England use a Track and Trace system as advised by the National Assessment Agency, a system not used in Wales. The Welsh students are at a disadvantage.

"It's just appalling, Natasha had that added burden of having to retake an AS-Level alongside her other A-Levels when the whole point is that the exams are spread out and you don't have to sit everything at once.

"Without doing that retake she wouldn't have got into university. Most parents and pupils are unaware this happens and it will inevitably happen again.

"We'd like to thank the school's headteacher Mr. Newsome for his support and assistance in trying to locate the lost scripts and also Angela Burns and her staff for pursuing this important matter."

The decision not to send Welsh exam papers by secure post was made by the Curriculum and Assessment Authority for Wales in full consultation with the Welsh Assembly Government.

Mrs. Burns said: "Education minister Jane Hutt has told me that they felt the money needed to introduce a secure delivery system "could be used more effectively to secure improvements to the administration of the examination system as a whole."

"I can't believe that it would cost very much to send these parcels by recorded delivery.  Last summer alone, 13 A-Level papers and 64 GCSE papers went missing, and we know that papers taken at other times went missing as well. This ridiculous system cannot be allowed to continue and I shall be requesting an urgent review takes place."