BRITAIN’S largest education union called for an end to the “rigid one-size-fits-all examination system” after today’s A-level results saw a record number of students being accepted on British degree courses.

Amid widening regional disparities, the proportion of A-level entries awarded top grades rose again this year, remaining above pre-pandemic highs, national figures for England, Wales and Northern Ireland showed.

The number of students taking A-levels was smaller this year after fewer made the required GCSE grades in 2023, the first year pupils in England returned to summer exams after the pandemic, according to the exams regulator Ofqual.

Despite this, Ucas figures showed that a record number of students were accepted on British degree courses, up 4.7 per cent on last year.

More than a quarter — 28.3 per cent — of British entries were awarded an A or A* grade, up by 0.5 percentage points on last year and higher than the 25.4 per cent rate in 2019, the last year of summer exams before the pandemic.

National Education Union general secretary Daniel Kebede said that the annual results day — which includes A-level, Applied General, T-Level and other Vocational Technical Qualification courses — “comes with disproportionate high stakes and unnecessary anxiety for many students. 

“When the entirety of a grade depends on regurgitating two years’ work over a few hours, inevitably some will not demonstrate what they are usually capable of.”

He said that some qualifications such as AGQs “use a mixture of assessment methods but are no less robust” than end-of-course exams, adding: “This rigid one-size-fits-all examination system needs to change.”

Mr Kebede described the ongoing Curriculum and Assessment Review as a “generational opportunity to modernise it by creating a curriculum that is engaging and uses assessment methods more closely aligned with the world young people will face.”

Ofqual figures showed the north-east was the only region in England to see a drop in the proportion of top grades from last year and 2019, with the gap growing even wider with the top-performing region, London.

Association of School and College Leaders general secretary Pepe Di’Iasio said the discrepancies reflect “socioeconomic factors … we have to stop merely talking about these issues and actually address them with investment in communities suffering from generational disadvantage.”