A-levels results success as grades rise

A-level results have revealed that more students than ever before have achieved top grades and the overall pass rate has risen further.

This year's results showed that the overall pass rate has risen to 96%, up from 95.4% last year. A grades at A level increased by 0.8 percentage points to 22.4%, up from 21.6% in 2003.

However, the grade success has fuelled a row among educationalists - twenty years ago the A grade pass rate was close to at 10%, half that of this year's results - and they point out that the lower pass grades, D and E could be effectively useless as the university benchmark was likely to shift to at least C grade passes.

But the results revealed that boys, who had previously performed more poorly than girls at A-level, are beginning to close the gender grade gap.

Minister of State for School Standards David Miliband said that today's A level results was "taking forward the education revolution and opening up opportunity to more pupils than ever before".

The Minister congratulated the students on their success and thanked teachers and support staff for their hard work in helping their pupils fulfil their potential. "Don't let anyone tell you that standards have fallen because more of you have done well," he said.

He said: "These results today show there is an education revolution underway in our country that is opening up opportunities for more young people than ever. These results are built on the hard work of students, schools and colleges. I congratulate the students and thank our teachers for their commitment.

"My message to them is simple. Don't let anyone tell you that standards have dropped because more of you have done well, this is simply a myth. Your hard work has merited success.

"At a time when Ofsted says the standard of teaching has never been higher, we should expect to have rising levels of achievement in our schools and colleges. We are getting better as a country at getting the best out of our young people. We should applaud them and applaud their schools and colleges."

The results also revealed regional variations in the number of A grades - students in Northern Ireland achieved 30%, Wales had 23.5% and England 22.1%.

Traditional A-level subjects English and Maths remain popular, but psychology has become more popular than chemistry and the numbers taking French have declined as have subjects viewed as difficult such as physics.

Over a quarter of a million A-level exams were taken this year.

(SP)