Calls for A-levels to be tougher

A-level results have improved dramatically in recent years

The government is facing calls to make A-levels harder amid predictions that a record number of students will gain top grades this year.

More than 260,000 students get their results this week and experts predict the pass rate will rise to nearly 97%.

Shadow Education Secretary David Cameron told the BBC the exam system needed to be "sufficiently rigorous".

But a spokeswoman for the Department for Education and Skills said results showed standards were being maintained.

In 1982 only 8.9% of students scored grade A at A-level but last year 22.4% achieved it.

An opinion poll published by the think tank Reform suggested that 46% of voters thought A-levels had become easier over the last 10-15 years.

The report also referred to earlier research by the University of Durham which has indicated that standards in school examinations and tests have declined.

'Tremendous boost'

Professor Alan Smithers, director of the University of Buckingham's Centre for Education and Employment Research, said the A-level pass rate last year was 96%, compared to 68.2% in 1982.

"It would be reasonable to suppose that we are going to get quite close to 96.5% this year," he said.

One explanation was that pupils took AS-levels in their first year of A-levels, allowing them to identify their best subjects for the next year, Prof Smithers said.

Those changes had given "a tremendous boost" to pass rates but "it probably means we need to put some more difficult questions in," he said.

We have to make sure that exams do the job they are meant to do David Cameron Tory education spokesman

"The tremendously high proportion getting these top grades in these subjects underlines the need for tougher questions so that the really talented distinguish themselves from the very able."

Mr Cameron told BBC News 24 young people were "working incredibly hard" and nothing should be done to undermine that.

"But I think we do need to look at the exam system, all the exam systems, and make sure they are sufficiently rigorous," he said.

Diploma debate

"We have to make sure that exams do the job they are meant to do.

"There is a worry in my mind that as the results get better each year, partly reflecting the very hard work that people have put in, that we are going to need to look at the exam system over the long term and work out how to make sure it is rigorous."

I have argued and my committee has argued for some time that rather than having grades we ought to just give people marks Barry Sheerman Commons education select committee chairman

David Hart, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said more schools were abandoning A-levels in favour of the International Baccalaureate diploma.

Education Secretary Ruth Kelly has promised to look at introducing a new diploma covering A-levels in 2008 following recommendations from former Ofsted chief Sir Mike Tomlinson.

But Mr Hart said there was not time to "sit about" and this week's results would reopen the debate.

Different qualification

Commons education select committee chairman Barry Sheerman told BBC Radio 4's Westminster Hour he backed the idea of a diploma which would give "every kid with every kind of ability" the chance "to shine and to show what they have got".

The committee had also recommended making individual marks public instead of giving grades, he said.

"I have argued and my committee has argued for some time that rather than having grades we ought to just give people marks.

"When university people look at those marks it gives them a much better guide as to how that student has performed and is he or she worthy of a place in the university. And employers too should be given the results."

The DfES spokeswoman said A-levels were "here to stay" but added: "We recognise that we need to increase the stretch and challenge within A-level for our brightest students.

"We have asked the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority to come forward with proposals for introducing tougher questions to stretch our most able, and the introduction of an extended project."