The pressure on the State Examinations Commission to mark a controversial Leaving Cert maths examination with consideration and fairness has intensified following continued complaints from teachers and parents.

The commission last night confirmed it had received a significant number of complaints about the higher maths paper from teachers and concerned parents, all of which would be referred to the chief examiner.

According to protocol, the chief examiner and the advisory team must now test the draft marking scheme at a two-day pre-conference. During this conference, the marking scheme will be considered in the light of commentary and correspondence from teachers, professional bodies and other interested parties, before being applied to exemplar material of candidates' work.

Calls yesterday to the National Parents Council reached almost unprecedented levels since Monday's higher level maths paper, spokeswoman Eleanor Petrie said. She maintained it was likely that the numbers undertaking higher level maths next year would seriously diminish.

"We had 11,000 students doing higher level this year. Next year it will probably go down to around 9,000 because a lot of students won't be willing to take the chance." She said it was now timely to review the exam timetabling of maths.

"We need to look again at putting honours maths on one day and ordinary maths on a later day so that students have a fall back option. Maths is such an important subject in terms of getting into college," she said.

"I don't think we have ever had so many calls from parents. All day yesterday the phone was ringing with parents seeking advice for their children who are really distressed."

She said the parents' council had been advising parents in recent days to review their child's CAO options and to consider alternative options which might allow their child to study ordinary or honours level maths next year while pursuing other areas of interest.

Minister for Education Mary Hanafin said yesterday she believed the maths exam should be marked fairly with the difficulty of the exam accounted for. She added however that students should try to forget about the controversy surrounding the exam.

"The important thing for students is to leave that paper behind them and to concentrate on the ones that they have yet to do," she said.