EDUCATION unions have welcomed plans to end the cycle of demoralising English and maths GCSE resits, after today’s results day showed a drop in their pass rate.

Pupils in England are typically required to retake subjects during post-16 education if they don’t achieve a grade 4 or above.

Education Secretary Lucy Powell told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the government will introduce a “new stepping stone qualification” instead.

Association of School and College Leaders general secretary Pepe Di’Iasio said: “This year’s post-16 resit results reinforce the fact that the government policy of then force-feeding them a relentless diet of GCSE English and maths in post-16 education is simply not working.

“If the government is serious about tackling the Neet [not in education, employment or training] crisis it must grasp this nettle and rethink how we assess English and maths.”

Prime Minister Andy Burnham has prioritised bringing down Neet numbers after the latest data showed the cohort surpassing one million for the first time since 2013 in May.

The proportion of post-16 British entries for English rose by 6.5 per cent on last year, but the rate of scoring a decent pass decreased by 1.4 percentage points.

For maths, the proportion of entries increased by 5.8 per cent but the rate of achieving a grade 4 was down 1.7 percentage points on 2025.

National Education Union general secretary Daniel Kebede said that the “English and maths GCSE resit policy simply does not work” and urged Ms Powell to “explore, with the profession, a broader approach to assessment that allows young people to demonstrate their strengths.”

Today’s results also showed the gap in results between boys and girls had shrunk again, but the discrepancy in top grades between London – the best-performing region – and the North East – the worst-performing – widened to the largest since current records began.

“The impact of poverty and regional inequality cannot be ignored,” he added.

“Schools do all they can to alleviate this but they cannot do it alone.”

The proportion of GCSE entries awarded top grades rose year on year, while the rate scoring a decent pass returned to pre-pandemic levels.

New preparatory qualifications will be introduced to help students before they take the resits, according to the Department for Education.