GCSE results: Northern Ireland ​students still ahead of counterparts in the UK

​Of the 30,800 GCSE students in the Province who received their results yesterday, 86.8% received grade C or above – a standard pass.

The proportion of UK students getting at least a pass grade – C in NI and Wales and a grade 4 in England – fell from 73.2% last year to 68.2% this year.

Northern Ireland was well ahead of England, where 70% of students got a pass grade, and Wales on 64.9%.In Scotland, the national results for the National 5 qualifications were published earlier in the month and showed that the pass rate was 78.8%.In terms of top grades – A or above in Northern Ireland and Wales and 7 or above in England – Northern Ireland was in second place behind Scotland.

In Scotland 38.6% of students got top grades while in Northern Ireland the figure was 34.5%, England was on 22.4% and Wales on 21.7%.

Meanwhile this year’s GCSE results suggest some subjects are flourishing while others could be heading for extinction.

The top 10 subjects with the most GCSE entries is unchanged this year – as it has been every year since 2018, with the science double award in first place, maths in second place and English third.

There is a new entry in the top 15, however. Computing has been climbing the chart in recent years and is now in 15th place, up from 16th last year and 20th place in 2016.

Design and Technology has been moving in the other direction for some time. It was the sixth most popular subject in 2012, but slipped out of the top 10 in 2018 and is now out of the top 15.