Earlyface

The General Certificate of Education (GCE) is an academic qualification that examination boards in the United Kingdom and a few of the former British colonies or Commonwealth countries, notably Sri Lanka and Singapore, confer to students.

The GCE traditionally comprised two levels: the Ordinary Level (O Level) and the Advanced Level (A Level). More recently examination boards also offer an intermediate third GCE level, the Advanced Subsidiary Level (AS Level) replacing the earlier Advanced Supplementary level.

History
The GCE was originally introduced in England, Wales and Northern Ireland in 1951, replacing the older School Certificate (SC) and Higher School Certificate (HSC). It was intended to cater for the increased range of subjects available to pupils since the raising of the school leaving age from 14 to 15 in 1947.

The examinations were graded into ordinary levels for the top 25% academically of 16- year-olds and (from 1965) CSE for the lower level. A Levels were the subsequent examination for those who studied for a further two years after O-Levels or CSE's.

There was also an advanced ordinary level (AO- level), which was at a higher standard than O- Levels but designed for more mature candidates. These were often in addition to O- Levels in subjects that the student was particularly adept at. A higher special paper (Special Paper S-level) was available to A-Level candidates who showed particular prowess in a subject, scoring a distinction in this paper meant that the candidate was in the top 0.1% of the year group.

In 1988, GCE O-Levels were phased out in state schools in favour of the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE). GCE A-Levels were retained. Grades were originally numbers 1 to 9, with 1 to 6 considered pass grades. Today, letter grades are used with A, B, C, D and E representing a pass and U (unclassified) representing a fail.

The A* grade was introduced in 2010 for students who achieve 80% and above in the overall A-level qualification and achieve 90% and over in all A2 modules.