THOUSANDS of jubilant youngsters woke up to a record high in A-level pass rates today.

About 300,000 North-East students and 400,000 from Yorkshire and Humberside are getting their results.

Nationally, the pass rate this year rose by 1.1 per cent to 95.4 per cent.

In addition the proportion awarded A-grades has increased from 20.7 per cent to 21.6 per cent, and for the first time, fewer than one in 20 entries has been judged a failure.

Headteachers warned that this year's record pass rates were being driven by sixth-formers abandoning "hard" courses, such as maths, to study "soft" subjects such as media studies.

The warning reignited the row which blazes each year over whether the "gold standard" exam has been dumbed down. Furious teaching unions called for an end to the annual row.

Terry Bladen, president of NASUWT, who teaches at Eastbourne School, Darlington, said: "It sickens me to the back teeth these people who do this year after year. It undermines the achievements of students and teachers.

"Students take subjects they enjoy - why should everyone do maths and physics? The subjects aren't easier or harder than each other, they are just different."

But Secondary Heads Association general secretary John Dunford warned the nation's future prosperity could be at stake if more students did not take maths, physics and modern languages.

The National Union of Teachers claimed that the introduction of the AS-level had enabled pupils to make better-informed choices, resulting in improved performance at A-level.

The proportion of students gaining grades A-C at AS-level has dropped this year.

Early indications last night showed that some of the region's schools and colleges had received good results.

Darlington's Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form notched up a pass rate of 98.5 per cent, two per cent up on last year.