Top ranking A-levels students in Northern Ireland have surged further ahead of England and Wales as pass rates continue to rise, results published today show.
Nearly a third of the 100,000 sitting the exam in the North (31.2 per cent) achieved A grades, an increase from 30 per cent last year.
In England and Wales the improvement was by just 0.4 per cent, to 22.8 per cent being awarded the highest classification.
With the gap stretching, and overall pass rates up slightly from 97.4 per cent to 97.5 per cent, exams body chief Gavin Boyd praised the performance of Northern Ireland's students.
The chief executive of the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA) said: "These are very impressive and very important results. "Our students should be rightly proud of their achievement, as should their schools and colleges.
Overall an extra 4 per cent sat A-Levels this year, and Mr Boyd was also encouraged by the narrowing of girls' traditional outperformance of boys.
"The difference in overall performance at grades A to E has dropped from 0.8 per cent in 2004 to 0.6 per cent this year," he said.
At the top A grades, although girls still have a significant lead on boys, this has been reduced by almost 1 per cent each point this year to three per cent.