"We don't know the reasons for why that gap is narrowing"
Thousands of teenagers across the UK have received their GCSE results and the gender gap for top grades persists.
Nearly a quarter of girls (24.5%) achieved at least a grade 7 (A), compared with 19.4% of boys. That represents a 5.1 percentage point gap.
The gender divide in top grades has been a consistent feature for decades.
However, this year marks the narrowest gap since 2000, when the earliest data is available.
Girls also outperformed boys at the “standard pass” benchmark.
Around 70.5% of girls achieved at least a grade 4 (C) compared with 64.3% of boys, a 6.2 percentage point difference.
Cath Jadhav, vice president and responsible officer at Pearson, said the organisation sees the gender gap as stable.
She said: “We don’t know the reasons for why that gap is narrowing… There will be lots of individual factors which affect that.”
GCSEs previously used a letter grading system.
From 2017, this shifted to numbers, with 9 the highest and 1 the lowest. This summer, 21.9% of students across the UK achieved a grade 7 (A).
That figure marks a 0.1 percentage point increase from 2024.
England saw a fall in the pass rate, going down from 67.4% to 67.1%.
The pass rate in Wales and Northern Ireland went up.
Wales saw the rate rise from 62.2% to 62.5% while Northern Ireland’s pass rate increased from 82.7% to 83.5%.
Students will now progress to sixth form, college or vocational training depending on their results.
Sir Ian Bauckham, chief regulator at Ofqual, stressed that grading standards remain consistent year on year.
He said: “The standard of work required to achieve a grade seven or a grade four at GCSE is the same this year as it was last year, and what we’re seeing is statistically insignificant changes at those key grades from last year to this year.
“That means basically that the underlying pattern, the underlying standard of performance amongst students from last year to this year, is stable.”
On gender differences, Sir Ian noted: “What we see today in the results is a very small apparent narrowing of the gap in performance between boys and girls.
“It’s important for people to understand that there is still a gap in the performance of boys and girls, but what we can say is that it doesn’t appear to be growing at the moment.”
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