8th September 2010 9:00
By Blue Tutors
GCSE pass rates, and numbers of A/A*s have risen again this year, for the 23rd year in a row. 69.1% of papers received an A-C grade, and 22.6% of qualifications were awarded an A or A*, up from 21.6% last year.
The government has again denied that the exams are getting easier, with the shadow education secretary saying that suggesting they are now easier is “complete and utter nonsense“. The claim is that the increasing achievements at GCSE are due to better teaching, and a better work ethic from students. However, the results also show that more students than ever are taking their Maths and English GCSE exams early. Roughly a tenth of students take their Maths and English exams at age 15 or younger, and go on to take AS-level exams early too. The theory is that students are able to do this because of a drop in GCSE exam difficulty.
The number of entries for GCSE single sciences increased, with each of Biology, Chemistry and Physics increasing by nearly a third. Andrew Hall, chief executive of the AQA examining board said that it was a great year for sciences, but not so good for languages. There has been a recent trend for fewer students to choose a language at GCSE ever since it stopped being compulsory. Entries for French and German dropped by 5.9% and 4.5% respectively, but many more students opted to study Polish, Chinese and Portuguese, and there are still nearly 180,000 students studying French at GCSE, the most popular language.
The results have been warmly welcomed by the government, but there are fears that even with record results, this generation of GCSE students will find it more difficult than ever to find places on higher education courses.