Tony Blair congratulated pupils and staff at Dunraven School, London

The provisional figures for 2005 show that 55.7% attained the equivalent of at least five GCSEs at grades A*-C.

This was two percentage points more than in 2004 - meeting the government's annual target for the first time.

On the new benchmark, which includes those getting English and maths GCSEs, the figure was 44.1%, up 1.4 points.

Girls continued to outperform boys: 60.8% getting the better GCSE-level results against 50.8%.

The official statistics now include GCSEs, GNVQs and a range of other equivalent vocational qualifications.

HAVE YOUR SAY They are the nearest thing to an objective measure that parents have Ken Ricketts, Wokingham Send us your comments

A warning note from government statisticians says an unusually high volume of GNVQ results was missing from the data supplied by the exam boards this year.

They stress the provisional nature of the figures, which will be confirmed only when the school-by-school statistics - the "league tables" - are published, which is usually in January.

The figures were released as the BBC published statistics obtained under the Freedom of Information Act on the proportion of pupils whose five good GCSE-level qualifications include English and maths GCSEs.

biggest rise in recent years has been in vocational qualifications full GCSE results account for 51 points in the total 55.7% short courses and other qualifications account for 4.7 state schools total: 53.6% independent schools: 82.6% Source: DfES

This is the new benchmark being promoted by the government.

These showed that in one in six of the schools that had better overall results in 2004 than in 2001, English and maths attainment was actually worse.

Prime Minister Tony Blair, visiting a successful school in London, said that, looked at nationally, the improvement trend "more or less follows the same path" on either measure.

He added: "I think overall probably it is fairly marginal to the performance of the system."

This is the first time the government has met its target for an annual increase of two percentage points in the five A*-C rate.

However, it changed the way the results are counted last year to include many more vocational qualifications - to encourage schools to offer them.

A spokesman for the Department for Education and Skills said this year's result on the pre-2004 basis, counting GCSEs and GNVQs, was 54%, an increase of 0.4 from last year.

So most of the headline increase was in the range of additonal vocational qualifications.

A-levels

Of the 149 local authorities reporting results this year, they rose in 124.

The percentage of pupils achieving the equivalent of five A*-C ranges from 35.8 to 79.2.

The A and AS-level results showed the average point score per candidate was 273.7, up from 269.2 last year.

But there was a slight drop in the number who passed at least two A-levels: 91.9% compared with 92% last year.

Nine-point-two per cent of A-level candidates achieved three or more A grades.

Schools enter students for exams that count in the league tables and that is, rightly or wrongly, how their success has been judged John Dunford Secondary Heads Association

Education Secretary Ruth Kelly said the results were "a tremendous achievement".

"We still face a number of challenges - particularly in raising the attainment of some of our lowest achievers."

The general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association, John Dunford, said: "League tables only report what they are designed to measure and schools adapt their policies accordingly.

"When league tables put more emphasis on English and mathematics, so will schools."

But they had assumed far too much importance and it was time they were ended, he added.