A Levels under examination
Updated on 14 August 2005
Ministers faced fresh calls to reform A-Levels amid predictions of another record number of students scoring top grades.
Too many pupils are getting A grades, say critics
Today the A-level results of over 200,000 prospective students were delivered electronically to Britain's universities.
The fate of those applicants with conditional offers is now sealed.
And there were top grades aplenty for the applicants to Royal Holloway, part of the University of London based in leafy Surrey.
For the 23rd year in succession those A-level staff being assessed by the likes of these university admissions staff are getting better.
The pass rate is up. the number of A's is up. A sign of brainier 18-year-olds? Or simply what's become known as grade inflation.
A-level results just keep on improving.
In 1982, 68 per cent of students passed the exams. By last year, this had increased to 96 per cent.
And when results come out on Thursday, it is reported that up to 97 per cent of pupils will have passed.
And the proportion of students achieving A grades, has risen from nine percent in 1982 to 23% per cent last year.
With close to one in four A-levels taken this summer expected to get the A grade it is not difficult to see why some say that the old standard of British education is no longer its Gold Standard.
