The figures, published by the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ), cover GCSE entries from students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland
The proportion of GCSE entries awarded top grades has fallen from last year but is higher than before the Covid-19 pandemic, national figures show. Hundreds of thousands of teenagers across the country received their GCSE exam results on Thursday in a year when efforts have been made in England to return grading to pre-pandemic levels.
The proportion of entries getting at least a 4 or a C grade - considered a "standard pass" - has fallen from 73.2% in 2022 to 68.2% this year - a drop of five percentage points, but higher than 67.3% in 2019. The overall rate for grades 1/G or above is 98%, down from 98.4% in 2022 and 98.3% in 2019. Girls continued their lead over boys for the top GCSE grades, with 24.9% of entries awarded 7/A or above compared with 19.1% for males - a gap of 5.8 percentage points. But the gap has narrowed from last year when girls were ahead of boys by 7.4 percentage points and from 2019 when girls led by 6.5 percentage points.
While traditional A*-G grades are used in Northern Ireland and Wales, in England these have been replaced with a 9-1 system, where 9 is the highest. A 4 is broadly equivalent to a C grade, and a 7 is broadly equivalent to an A. He added: "We would caution against direct comparisons between this year's grades and those in 2019 because of the disproportionate impact of the pandemic and subsequent cost-of-living crisis on young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. It is likely that the outcomes for many of these young people will be affected by these factors and this may also impact on the results of schools which serve disadvantaged communities.
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