Northern Ireland students have achieved record high grades and have performed better than their counterparts in England and Wales, according to this year's A-level results.

The results, to be received by students on Thursday, show the numbers awarded A grades increased from 24.6% to 28.1%, outstripping other parts of the UK by more than seven percentage points.

The overall pass rate also improved by almost four points, with 96.4% of entrants achieving a grade between A and E.

Despite a continuing gender gap in the province, this year's results also confirmed that male students in Northern Ireland still fared better than both their female and male counterparts in England and Wales.

Gavin Boyd: "Delighted" by results

Gavin Boyd, chief executive of the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA), said he was delighted by the results.

He dismissed any suggestion that tests were being "dumbed down".

"I am absolutely satisfied that all the evidence that we have shows that standards have been maintained over a number of years," he said.

"We are, however, seeing an improvement in results and we believe that is happening because young people are being prepared for examinations better than ever before.

"Teachers have more support materials and more advice available to them and the young people are benefiting from that."

Mr Boyd also claimed educational reforms and the adoption of AS-levels had made a very important contribution to the improving standards.

"The reforms are working very well for candidates in Northern Ireland in terms of the significant improvement we have seen in examination results," he said.

"We have had a record set of results this year. These results mirror the exceptional ones we got last year at AS-level so this has led to the success this year.

"There is a price to pay, however. That price is that candidates have been working harder, they have been sitting more subjects at AS-level and have had less time available for traditional enrichment programmes at schools.

"But we will continue to look at that to ensure the correct balance is struck."

Helpline

The statistics released by the CCEA also confirmed that girls continued to outperform boys in Northern Ireland, particularly at the highest level.

At A-level, there was a 3.5 percentage points gap between entries from girls which attained A grades and those from boys.

But in terms of the overall pass rate, boys closed the gap to 1.4 percentage points.

Mr Boyd also dismissed any suggestion that students were gaining higher grades in what could be classed as "softer" subjects, pointing to the continued dominance of traditional subjects in Northern Ireland.

"The five most popular subjects at A-level in the province are biology, English literature, maths, geography and history," he added.

GCSE results from the CCEA will be issued on Tuesday 20 August.

The CCEA has set up a special exams helpline which will be in operation from 0900 BST until 1700 BST weekdays until 23 August.

The number is 028 90261260 or e-mail helpline@ccea.org.uk.