Girls outperform boys in Northern Ireland GCSE results

Girls in Northern Ireland continue to achieve higher GCSE results compared to boys, according to the Joint Council for Qualifications.

It published overall outcomes on Thursday as thousands of pupils opened their results.

GCSE results in Northern Ireland are lower than last year but higher than pre-pandemic grades.

This is the second time around 30,800 students have undertaken summer exams marked and graded by exam boards since the onset of Covid-19.

Overall provision figures suggest that grades for 2022/23 are higher than those achieved in 2019, but lower than 2021/22 results.The JCQ said this reflects "the continued return to pre-pandemic grading". Most GCSEs in Northern Ireland are completed through exam board CCEA. These account for about 96% of overall examinations and are marked in letters.

The rest are taken through Welsh and English exam boards which are marked in numbers.

Some pupils in Northern Ireland will therefore receive results in the form of numbers as well as letters.

Entries for GCSEs in Northern Ireland increased by 2.3% from 168,118 to 164,413.

Around 86.6% of students in Northern Ireland received grade C/4 and above, with 34.5% achieving grade A/7 and above. The GCSE results in Northern Ireland show that 86.8% of students received grade C/4 and above, and 34.5% achieved grade A/7 and above.

In GCSE English Language, 27.3% of entries achieved A/7 and above, and 86.5% achieved grade C/4 and above.

Meanwhile, this year’s figures for GCSE Mathematics show that 29.2% of entries achieved A/7 grade and above, whilst 76.4% of entries were awarded a grade C/4 or above.

Subject choices reflect no change in the top five, with 41.6% of all GCSE entries in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subjects. This year, STEM entries rose by 2.5%.

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- Call 0300 200 7820, or - Go online at www.nidirect.gov.

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