Tanya Gerasinenko and David Binnar celebrate their A level success at Liverpool College _320
THOUSANDS of nervous Merseyside students will learn their fate today with the arrival of their A-Level results.
With parents anxiously awaiting their children’s examination grades, new figures have revealed relatively low numbers of local students even sitting the exams.
They show that four Merseyside authorities fall below the national average for the number of GCSE students who go on to take A-Levels.
Knowsley was named as the second worst authority in the country, with fewer than one in eight GCSE pupils going on to sit A-Levels, something the council later disputed.
It is also one of only two authorities which has a higher percentage of NEETS (16-18 year-olds not in education, employment or training) than students actually taking A-Levels.
The figures obtained by the Conservatives, show that of 1,971 students entered for GCSEs in 2004/5 only 228 students went on to take A-Levels in 2006/7.
This means only 11.57% of students carry on to A-Level, compared with the national average of 44%.
Halton and Liverpool also fall below the average with 26.79% and 31% respectively, as does Warrington with 34.53% and St Helens with 41.18%.
Wirral and Sefton, which sit next to each other in the table, buck the trend.
Just under half of all GCSE students, 45.45% in Wirral and 45.50% in Sefton take A-Levels.
Cheshire is also ranked above the average, with 46.71%, although all our authorities fall well below the top-performing London authorities. Hammersmith and Fulham entered 1,147 pupils for GCSEs and entered only 76 less for A-Levels amounting to 93.37%.
Three other London authorities admitted more students for A-Levels than GCSEs, suggesting some children may have moved between authorities.
A spokesman for Knowsley council disputed the figures as inaccurate and said the situation had improved in the past year.
They said: “Last year, almost a third of Year 11 leavers in Knowsley went on to advanced study in the borough – 27% to A- levels and 5.5% to higher vocational studies.
“It is not the case that just 11% progressed on to A-Level studies, and we have no idea where this information was sourced from.
“The current figure for 16-year-olds progressing into learning is 89.5%, which compares favourably with the North West average of 89.2%, and is better than the England average of 89.3%.”
They added: “In relation to the percentage of NEETs, this is higher than the national average, but the actual numbers of young people who are unemployed in Knowsley has declined.
“We recognise the challenge we have in translating our excellent transition rate at 16 into more of our 17 and 18 year-olds continuing.”
Halton, ranked 15th worst across the country, said the figures were a reflection of the fact there are only two small council controlled schools offering A-Levels, and most students go on to study at the Riverside College, which is out of authority control, so not included in the figures.
FOR the earliest news on A- Level results, log on today to our online LDP education supplement at www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/education
