Thousands await GCSE results
Hundreds of thousands of pupils will receive their GSCE exam results on Thursday, with commentators predicting another record performance.
Rexam profits drop in 2007Media reports said experts expected that one in five students would achieve the top A or A* grades.
Last year, 19.5 percent of papers achieved the top two levels, while the percentage of papers achieving a "good pass" of at least a C grade rose to 63.3 percent.
In October, the government said it wanted 53 percent of all pupils to achieve a good grade - at least a C - in five GCSEs including English and maths by 2011.
That target was tougher than the previous measure of five good passes in any GCSE subject, which critics said was distorted by "easy" or vocational courses.
A report released by the right-leaning think tank Civitas on Thursday said vocational GCSE qualifications in subjects such as tourism and construction were being used to artificially reach targets.
The author Anastasia de Waal said lower-performing pupils, often from poor backgrounds, were being pushed into such courses, receiving sub-standard qualifications as a result.
"Too many people are being cheated in this government stunt: pupils, employers the public, and all to make the government look like it's doing better than it is," de Waal said.
Last week's A level results showed that sixth-form pupils had set a new record for top grades while the pass rate rose for the 26th consecutive year.
The number of "A" grades climbed 0.6 percentage points to 25.9 percent, while the pass rate edged up to 97.2 from 96.9 percent, according to the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ).
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