Overend congratulates GCSE students on results day

Mid Ulster MLA says "well done" to thousands who awaited results today - describing results as "excellent".

The Ulster Unionist education spokesperson Sandra Overend has congratulated Northern Ireland’s young people on attaining excellent GCSE results.

With this year's results showing students here not only improved on last year's showings but also increased the proportion of A*-C grades to 79.1% - that's up 12.5% higher than England and Wales.

"The results of our local students in this year’s GCSE exams are again excellent.  In terms of our exam entrants gaining the valuable A* - C grades we have maintained a well-established pattern of being well over 10 percentage points ahead of both England and Wales.  This is a fantastic achievement for our schoolchildren and their teachers," she said.

She did however warn against people resting on their laurels, though. Setting out a stark warning that there remains still plenty of work to do.

"This continuing academic excellence should not blind us to the major challenges that face education or allow the Department to become complacent. There remains a well-documented problem with an unacceptably long tail of pupils who leave school with little or no formal qualifications.  Business leaders also report that many school leavers lack interpersonal skills to succeed in the world of work. We must be careful not to overvalue academic achievement to the detriment of all the other abilities such as vocational and sporting," she added.