NIETS director Prateep Chankong said yesterday that if parents and students want the open-ended and "fill-in-the-blank" sections, they should complain directly to the education minister.

More than 100 high school students and their parents continued to protest outside NIETS at Phaya Thai Plaza yesterday.

Caretaker Education Minister Charu-ron Chaisang on Wednesday ordered a nationwide review of the multiple choice part in a bid to calm growing anger over the results. Some students had recorded the near impossible score of zero, prompting Chaturon's order to check for inaccuracies.

He said reviewing the other parts would take time, require at least 500 teachers and cost about Bt10 million.

Protesters assembled early outside the NIETS office yesterday and quickly became annoyed upon discovering there was no one there to talk to.

They managed to speak to institute staff at about 10.30am, and complained they had either been credited with impossibly low scores or had falsely been recorded as not having sat the examination

at all.

The NIETS website was alive yesterday with complaints from students, many of whom suggested the O-Net and A-Net tests should be scrapped altogether in favour of the old entrance examination system.

The O-Net (Ordinary National Educa-tion Test) and A-Net (Advanced National Education Test) are vital to 12th graders planning to go to university.

About 300,000 students sat the new exams this year, the first time they have been used.