'Modest rise' in A-level pass rate, say exam boards

The A-level results of about 250,000 candidates, due on Thursday, will show an overall rise on the pass rate for the 19th year in succession.

The overall pass rate is expected to be slightly higher than the 89.1 per cent achieved last year – itself a record.

Headteachers also predict a rise in the number of students with A-C grade passes in thislast year of the traditional A-level syllabus. Next year's candidates will be the first to take the renamed A2-level exams as the "guinea pigs" for the first AS-level exams.

This year's figures will also include the results of the first AS-level exams sat by first-year sixth formers. According to the exam boards, they will show that between 75 per cent and 80 per cent of those who sat the exam will make use off a concession allowing them to tell the exam boards they do not want their AS-level results declared if they plan to re-sit exams, or if they fear that by revealing them they could jeopardise their chances of getting into university.

However, the results declared will confirm that students' grades in AS-levels are broadly in line with the expectations of how well they will perform in their A2-level examinations next year.

Ministers will find the results heartening for showing a modest improvement in standards even before the Government's drive to improve secondary school standards has gained full momentum. A larger rise might have prompted claims, similar to that last year by the Institute of Directors, that the exam is now easier to pass.

Meanwhile, research to be published next month by the marketing agency Barkers shows that today's university applicants are still more likely to opt for traditional universities rather than the former polytechnics. The line between universities and polytechnics was abolished in 1992, but the research by the agency indicates the former status of the university still seems important for students. Today's applicants are still aware of which institutions were former polytechnics, it adds.

The research, based on questionnaires completed by more than 3,000 university applicants, will be published in full in September.

* One of England's largest further education colleges has received a damning report from Ofsted which said nearly half of its departments were below standard. Stockport College has two months to draw up an improvement plan after six of its 13 departments were judged unsatisfactory and only three found good. Ofsted said the college let too many of its 12,805 students drop out or fail courses, the "overall quality of provision" was inadequate and management was weak. Last year only one in three mature students and 57 per cent of teenagers passed A-levels compared with a national college pass rate of 70 per cent.