Record GCSE failure rate fuels exams row

Employers and academics last night issued blunt warnings that the exams system was failing to deliver school leavers properly equipped for the workplace - as GCSE results released today showed a record failure rate.

In the most polarised set of results since the exam began in 1988, some 138,000 GCSEs - 2.4% of the 5.73m taken nationwide - failed to result in even a G grade. The failure rate is 0.3 percentage points up on last year.

But the highest-achieving students are due to collect top marks by the sackful when they receive their results today. More than one in 20 GCSEs received an A* grade and one in six obtained at least an A, both records.

With ministers already under pressure within the past week from disappointing performance in national test results at ages seven and 11, and claims that some A-levels were easier than others, industry demanded action to rectify chronic weaknesses in basic qualifications.

Almost half of students taking maths and double science and more than 40% taking English at GCSE failed to achieve a C grade.

There were also worrying drops in pass rates in maths and modern languages, major concerns at A-level and degree level.

"We know we've got work to do on maths and languages," admitted the education secretary, Charles Clarke. But the government in England is due to scrap compulsory modern languages from 14 onwards.

A CBI survey to be published next month shows 34% of employers are dissatisfied with the literacy and numeracy skills of school leavers. "There are too many people who simply lack the basic abilities to step into today's world of work," said Digby Jones, its director general.

"Too often employers have to pick up the tab with extra training - damaging UK productivity - when low basic skills are a direct result of failures in the education system. The government should make eradicating this scandalous weakness its top priority before considering more radical education reforms."

The apparently inexorably year-on-year rise in the proportion of entries achieving grade C - the recognised mark for a "good" GCSE - continued, although the increase of 0.2 percentage points to 58.1% of all entries was the smallest since 1994.

Unusually, the improvement was powered by boys. Girls' results stayed the same as last year, although they are still well ahead.

The boom subjects were religious studies and business studies.

Richard Wilson, business policy executive at the Institute of Directors, welcomed the hike in business studies entries but warned: "Literacy and numeracy are key to everything. There's no point having a business qualification if you can't write a coherent letter to a colleague, or look after cash flow accounts."

Elsewhere, there were strong signs of schools playing to the league tables. The numbers of students taking intermediate part one GNVQs - recognised by the exams regulator as equivalent to four C grades - nearly doubled. There was close to a threefold increase in entries in this exam for information technology, a course exploited by some of the country's leading comprehensives, including Thomas Telford in Shropshire.

In the run-up to today's results, most criticism of GCSEs had come from public schools, which complained they were not stretching their students. Tony Little, the headmaster of Eton, likened students sitting large numbers of GCSEs to "Boy Scouts collecting badges". But last night the focus shifted to those at the other end of the spectrum.

Ministers could struggle to hold the line while they await the conclusions of the review of 14-19 education by a team led by Mike Tomlinson, the former chief inspector of schools.

Alan Smithers, professor of education at Liverpool University, bemoaned the lack of recognised vocational courses for students who were unable to go down an academic track.

"Clearly the gap is widening. Some people are doing better and some are achieving less," he said.

"For pupils taking the exam, if A*-C is within reach it's worth working hard to achieve them because it opens up doors and there are rungs up the ladder to university. But if you can only achieve F and G you wonder what the incentive is.

"There is a whole range of abilities that aren't reflected by GCSE. At the moment there aren't any alternatives in the school system."

Damian Green, the shadow education secretary, echoed the call for improved vocational qualifications. "The gap between the best and the worst is widening under Labour," he said.

"With more than 30,000 pupils leaving school last year alone with no qualifications, the figure looks likely to increase this year. Unless this damaging trend is reversed we will continue to allow generations to drift out of mainstream society and into crime."

The Liberal Democrats said one in four youngsters did not take qualifications in all four core areas of English, maths, science and modern languages.

"We have to ensure that pupils have a curriculum that is appropriate," said Phil Willis, the party's education spokesman.

"Where pupils are performing badly, a common factor is not primarily wealth or gender, but that they are alienated from the curriculum."