Politicians and teachers' leaders have been congratulating students on their A-level and AS-level achievements.

Those who denigrate this trend ... believe that such success should be confined to a small and elite minority

Teachers' leader Eamonn O'Kane

The A-level pass rate shot up this year, to a record 94.3% overall.

The Education Minister, Stephen Twigg, called on people to celebrate not denigrate the achievements of pupils and teachers.

"Students have worked harder than ever before to complete demanding programmes of study and their efforts have paid off."

The results showed that Curriculum 2000 was working.

'Ignore the whingers'

The Institute of Directors said the jump in the pass rate indicated "endemic and rampant grade inflation".

Alarm bells should be ringing

Conservative MP Damian Green

But the Confederation of British Industry said employers did still regard A-levels as a "benchmark of ability".

The general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, Doug McAvoy, said: "Year after year we have the opportunity to celebrate the hard work and achievement of pupils and teachers.

"Yet each year the debate is dominated by the whingers who cannot accept that the exams are better, young people are working hard and their teachers provide them with phenomenal support."

Students would have the sense to ignore them, he added.

Proud

His opposite number at the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, Eamonn O'Kane, said: "Those who denigrate this trend are always to be found in the ranks of those who believe that such success should be confined to a small and elite minority and who have been repeating their catch-cry that more means worse since the beginning of the last century."

The leader of the Secondary Heads Association, John Dunford, said the results were "a 19-year record of success that any other country would be proud to shout from the rooftops".

"Now, the success of secondary schools has enabled more than three times as many students to enter higher education and this is what the country needs at the start of the 21st Century."

Alarm bells

The leader of the other big head teachers' union, David Hart, of the National Association of Head Teachers, said students and their teachers "have come up trumps despite all the pressures imposed by an overloaded examination system".

"Nobody should be the least bit surprised if standards have risen, partly because students have used the AS-level process to generate the best possible results in order to gain university admission or good jobs."

The Conservative spokesman, Damian Green - who earlier this week repeated his call for AS-levels to be scrapped - said: "I of course congratulate all hard-working pupils on their well deserved grades."

But alarm bells should be ringing.

"With only the most academic pupils taking A-levels in the basic subjects, a two-tier A-level system is emerging. So much for greater inclusion."

'Over-tested'

The Liberal Democrats' David Rendel said credit was due to the children and teachers who had achieved great things within the current examination structure.

"But until we have a complete review of the system we will continue to face the annual debate over A-level standards falling," he said.

"As it stands, children are being taught to pass exams.

"This is no wonder when the government has insisted on an over-centralised, over-tested education system."