Northern students outperforming English and Welsh
Top ranking A-Level students in Northern Ireland have surged further ahead of England and Wales as pass rates continue to rise, results published today show.
Nearly a third of all those sitting the exam in the North (31.2%) achieved A grades, an increase from 30% last year.
The overall improvement (including England, Scotland and Wales) was by just 0.4%, to 22.8% being awarded the highest classification.
With the gap stretching, and overall pass rates up slightly from 97.4% to 97.5%, exams body chief Gavin Boyd praised the performance of the North's students.
The Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA) chief executive said: “These are very impressive and very important results.
“Our students should be rightly proud of their achievement, as should their schools and colleges.
“The gap between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK has increased.”
Overall an extra 4% sat A-Levels this year, and Mr Boyd was also encouraged by the narrowing of girls’ traditional outperformance of boys.
“The difference in overall performance at grades A to E has dropped from 0.8% in 2004 to 0.6% this year,” he said.
“And at the top A grades, while girls still have a significant lead on boys, this has been reduced by almost 1% each point this year to 3%.”
Defending the exams against accusations of dumbing down, he insisted that teachers and students were just better prepared than ever before.
He claimed: “Behind it all I think there’s some sort of generational jealousy.
“Old fogies like me don’t like the fact that young people are now doing better.”
