The proportion of students passing November resits in GCSE English language has fallen sharply, the latest data has shown.
In results data issued by the Joint Council for Qualifications this morning, just over a third (34.9 per cent) of students aged between 17 and 19 secured the grade 4 or better needed to pass English language - down from 40.3 per cent achieving this in November 2023.
Each age group saw a fall in the pass rate from last year - by 6.3 percentage points for 17-year-olds, 1.8 percentage points for 18-year-olds and 3.4 percentage points for 19-year-olds.
For candidates aged 20 or over, the pass rate fell from 38.6 per cent last year to 34.2 per cent this year.
The summer 2024 GCSE results also showed a marked drop in the pass rate for English language, which was mostly driven by candidates aged 17 or over who were resitting. The pass rate for candidates aged 17 or over in the summer was 20.9 per cent.
Slight narrowing in gender gap
For students aged 17 and 18, today’s resit results also show a slight narrowing in the gender gap in English language pass rates.
In November 2023, 47.5 per cent of female candidates aged 17 passed English language, compared with 42.7 per cent of male candidates.
This 4.8 percentage point gap narrowed to 1.9 percentage points this year as 37.6 per cent of male candidates aged 17 passed, compared with 39.5 per cent of female candidates.
The gender gap at age 18 also narrowed from 5 percentage points last year to 1.4 this year.
Tom Middlehurst, curriculum, assessment and inspection specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said: “It is disappointing to see a decline in English results and we need to see further analysis on this to understand why this has happened.
”We feel very sorry for the young people who now face having to retake these qualifications again,” he added. “There is clearly an urgent need to rethink the policy of mandatory resits as it obviously isn’t working.”
ASCL has repeatedly called for the resit policy, which requires students who do not achieve a pass grade in English and maths GCSEs to resit at post-16, to be scrapped.
ASCL described this process as “humiliating” in its response to the government’s ongoing curriculum and assessment review.
The Department for Education recognises grade 4 as a standard pass in GCSEs.
Entry data released in the autumn showed entries to resit GCSE English Language in November had risen by 44 per cent from those in Year 13 or above, and by 18 per cent from Year 12s.
Meanwhile, the percentage of candidates passing GCSE maths resits has risen slightly - from 22.2 per cent in November 2023 to 23.6 per cent.
The DfE has been contacted for comment.
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