GCSEs 2009: Another record breaking year
BRITAIN'S teenagers scored record GCSEs results again today, with two thirds of exams awarded a good grade.
But there was a drop in the number of English entries being awarded at least a C, and the number of pupils taking a foreign language continued its steady decline.
Overall, 21.6% of grades were awarded an A* or A, an increase of 0.9 percentage points on last year.
More than 67.1% of entries were at grades A*-C, up from 65.7% last summer, an increase of 1.4 percentage points.
The overall pass rate at A*-G was rose to 98.6% from 98.4% last year.
The rises came despite the number of entries dipping again this year - there were more than 5.46 million entries this year, compared with 5.66 million in 2008.
The Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ), which published the national GCSE results for England, Wales and Northern Ireland today, said the fall was in line with the reduction in the number of 16 year olds.
English results fell this year, 62.7% of entries were awarded at least a C grade, down 0.2% from 62.9% in 2008.
But the proportion of maths entries scoring A*-C rose 0.9% to 57.2%, from 56.3% last year.
There was an increase in the number of pupils taking separate exams in biology, chemistry and physics, while the number taking a single science GCSE have fallen.
Modern languages were again casualties, as the numbers of pupils taking French or German slumped for the seventh year.
This year there were 188,688 entries for GCSE French, down from 202,136 in 2008, a 6.6% drop, while German entries fell to 73,469 from 76,802 last year, a drop of 4.2%.
Entries to GCSE Spanish remain steady, with 67,070, compared with 67,108 last summer.
The slump follows the Government’s controversial decision to make modern foreign language optional after the age of 14.
Entries to information and communication technology (ICT) also suffered a drop again this year, down 14.1% this year.
JCQ director Jim Sinclair said: "This is a day of celebration for students and their teachers. There has been good performance overall across most subjects including mathematics and languages. It is also reassuring to see increased entry to the separate sciences.
"The core subjects of English, mathematics and science continue to dominate and account for almost half of the full course entry."
Across the UK, about 750,000 candidates were waking up to their results, and will use their grades to decide whether they stay on at school to do A-levels or another course, or quit education to find work.
Former chief inspector of schools Sir Mike Tomlinson said GCSEs were ``complex and expensive'' to administer and may have outlived their purpose.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the future of the exams would have to be reviewed following the Government’s decision to extend the education leaving age to 18.
"It does raise the question of why do we need such a complex terminal examination at that point and if we do need it, what purpose does it serve?"
Sir Mike added: "I think we would need to have some form of assessment of progress at 16, simply to give a clear indication of whether a student was on the right course, was working at the level necessary.
"But I don’t think we need necessarily have a system that is as complex and expensive as at present."
Although girls are still outperforming boys in the majority of subjects, boys are doing better than girls in maths for the first time in more than a decade.
Mike Cresswell, director general of the exam board AQA, said this could be a result of dropping coursework assessment in favour of exams.
"This year the boys are doing better than the girls at GCSE maths.
"It’s the first time that has been true since 1997," he said.
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