NEARLY six out of ten GCSE students in state schools failed to earn good grades in English and mathematics last year despite an apparent record improvement in examination results, new figures show.

Ministers claimed that the performance tables of GCSE and A-level results, published today, showed that schools had achieved the “biggest single improvement in standards for a decade”. The proportion of students who passed five GCSE subjects at grade C or better, the Government’s benchmark for success at 16, rose by by 2.6 percentage points to 56.3 per cent in 2005. But it fell by 12 points to 44.3 per cent when English and maths were included. It dropped to 42 per cent once results for independent schools were excluded.

The headline rate of improvement masked a deeper failure in boys. Only 37.8 per cent in state schools passed five good GCSEs, including English and maths, last summer, compared with 46.2 per cent of girls.

Almost 97 per cent of pupils in grammar schools and 74 per cent in private schools reached this standard. Nearly 200,000 boys and 156,000 girls in state schools did not.

Schools are ranked in league tables of results by the proportion of students passing five good GCSEs in any subject.

Ruth Kelly, the Education Secretary, has ordered changes to include English and maths from next year, amid suspicions that schools are entering students for softer subjects to disguise failure in the basics.

The Department for Education and Skills (DfES) carried out a pilot study to show how the reform would have affected each school’s results this year. But it refused to release the data before publication of the performance tables, saying the information would be released on its website today.

Jacqui Smith, the School Standards Minister, said that 52,000 more students gained five good passes in English, maths and three other subjects than in 1997. She acknowledged that schools had to “raise the bar even further on improvement”. “That is why we are publishing these figures and incorporating them into the league tables from next year,” she said.

Figures released by the DfES show that the gap has widened since 1997 between the proportion of pupils passing five good GCSEs in any subject and that of pupils whose passes include English and maths, despite massive spending to raise standards of literacy and numeracy.

The proportion of school-leavers with five good GCSEs rose by 11.2 percentage points between 1997 and 2005, from 45.1 per cent to 56.3 per cent. But it went up by only 8.7 percentage points, from 35.6 per cent to 44.3 per cent, over the same period when English and maths were included.

Alan Smithers, director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at Buckingham University, said that the figures showed that too many students were being “nudged” into easier subjects such as vocational GNVQs, equivalent to four GCSEs.

The tables also revealed that half of Tony Blair’s flagship city academies were among the worst schools for GCSE results and truancy. Only 14 of 27 academies have been open long enough for 2005 results to be included. Three were in the bottom 50 schools and seven were in the worst 200. Three were in the bottom 50 for truancy.

The DfES said that results had improved at all seven academies in the bottom 200.

Teachers’ unions made their annual call for the abolition of “distorted” league tables. Mary Bousted, of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said: “What parents want is a school where their child will be safe, happy and well-educated, but tables encourage them to rely on dubious statistics.”

Times recommends

• Graduates move home to cut costs
• Screen tests are the future of exams
• Briefing: University funding