Pupils generally take nine General Certificate of Secondary Education GCSEexaminationsons in Year Eleven (aged 15 16), and they have a choice of three, four or five A-levels in the sixth form.
General Certificate of Education Advanced ("A") Level Examination are awarded advanced standing and credit.
The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is now broadly thought too easy, with an ever-rising number of pupils awarded top marks.
— D.D. GUTTENPLAN Britain plans major changes in its high school certificate Britain's General Certificate of Secondary Education, or GCSE, will be reviewed and significantly revamped by 2015, a government agency said this month.
Advocated by Mr. Gove, the government's education proposals, which included a failed attempt to replace the traditional British G.C.S.E., or general certificate of secondary education, with the English baccalaureate certificate, have been controversial in Britain.
The policies currently in effect for General Certificate of Education AA" Level Examinations, International Baccalaureate Higher Level Examinations, and the Cambridge Pre-University Examinations are summarized in the table below.
The greater the number of "advanced level" passes, rather than General Certificate of Secondary Education (formerly "ordinary level") passes, that a student acquires, the better his chances are of entering the university of his choice.
At the completion of secondary education, students (in both privately and publicly funded schools) receive the General Certificate of Secondary Education if they achieve the required grades in examinations and course-work assessments.
The idea of having a general certificate which would apply to most of the population – rather than the previous situation predicated on the idea that O-levels were for the elite and CSEs were second rate – was a very egalitarian move.
