The Minister of State for School Standards, Nick Gibb has spoken of the government’s plan to make the country, ‘a place where there is no limit on anyone’s ambition.’
In a statement released as thousands of students collect their GCSE results, Gibb said, “The hard work and determination of hundreds of thousands of 16-year-olds will be rewarded today as they collect their GCSE results; qualifications that are the gateway to the next stage of their education.”
“We want to make our country a place where these is no limit on anyone’s ambition or what they can achieve – that’s why we are working to ensure there are even more high-quality schools in every part of the country.”
“And I am pleased to see that there are more GCSEs being taken in the core academic subjects, those that give students a wider range of opportunities.”
“And for those 17-year-olds who have struggled to achieve good grades in maths, we are seeing 4,000 more successful retakes of those exams, delivering better prospects for every one of those young people.”
The minister’s statement comes as figures reveal that girls are still outperforming boys at GCSEs, with the gap between the number of boys and girls getting A*-C grades at an 11 year high.
Despite this though, the number of pupils achieving a grade C or above has fallen to the lowest level for almost ten years. The number of students resitting their English and maths GCSE was at its largest – an increase of 26 per cent on last year.
