A-Level Results Day 2016

Hundreds of thousands of teenagers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are receiving their A-level and AS results today. The A-level results show a stable pattern compared with last year.

Maths remains the nation's most popular choice of subject, as it was last year, and increasing numbers are also opting to take Further Maths at A-Level.

The proportion of top grades (A and A*) is 25.8%, down by 0.1% on last year. The overall pass (grades A*-C) rate of 98.1% remained the same. Northern Ireland remains the region with the biggest proportion of top grades, 29.5%.

Girls fared better than boys, once again, with 79.7% of girls getting a pass grade, compared with 75% for boys. Boys are getting more A* grades (8.5% compared with 7.7% for girls), although this gap between the very top-performing girls and boys has narrowed for the first time in five years. The overall level of A* grades (8.1%) has been falling now for 2 years.

According to Ucas, the universities' admissions service, 424,000 university places have been offered to hopeful students, which is up by 3% on the same time last year. But many places are reportedly still available through clearing, including at leading universities and for highly sought-after courses, such as medicine.

The increase in the number of places still available is mainly due to two factors: a roughly 2% fall in the number of school-leavers and the removal of the cap on the number of places universities in England can offer.

AS levels are being "decoupled" from being part of A-levels - and this year's figures show a 13.7% drop in entries for the AS course. Previously the AS has carried with it the option of continuing on to a full A-Level, but this will now cease to be the case: if you register for an AS, this is the qualification you will get.

Teachers and head teachers' leaders have warned that, although the overall results appear to show stability when compared with recent years, individual schools and pupils are facing some unpredictable outcomes.

The current cap of £9000 for university tuition fees is being removed, so students starting at England's universities in the autumn could face higher fees. Exeter University has been the first to announce that it will increase fees to £9,250 for all current and new students.

With the prospect of increasing fees, school leavers may opt not to go to university at all. Financial services firm PwC says that it has had a 20% increase over two years for new recruits of those leaving school with A-levels.