GCE Ordinary Level (United Kingdom)

This article is about the secondary school leaving exam once taken in the United Kingdom. For the O Level qualification worldwide, see GCE Ordinary Level.

O-level logo

The General Certificate of Education (GCE) O-level, also called the Ordinary Level or O level, is a subject-based qualification conferred as part of the General Certificate of Education (GCE). It was introduced as part of British educational reform by the government of the United Kingdom alongside the more in-depth and academically rigorous A-level (Advanced Level) in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. England, Wales and Northern Ireland replaced O-levels with GCSE and IGCSE exams. The Scottish equivalent was the O-grade (replaced, following a separate process, by the Standard Grade). The O-level qualification is still awarded by Cambridge International Examinations in select locations, including secondary schools in the country of Mauritius, instead of or alongside the IGCSE qualifications. Currently, CIE (abbrev. Cambridge International Examinations) offers curricula for approximately 40 different subjects. The O-Level qualifications are still recognized for admission into universities worldwide.

Structure

O-levels were predominantly exam-based; this had advantages for students in part-time or evening education. Some commentators criticised this mainly exam-based approach as offering only partial proof of the student's overall ability in comparison with other methods (e.g., coursework-based assessment). There was no summative "school certificate": each subject was a separate O-level in its own right.

Madsen Pirie found that the O-level was advantageous to boys because of exam-based learning. Pirie also observes that the GCSE focus on coursework has disadvantaged boys, reversing the gender gap in attainment, to the degree where in all subjects girls outperform boys, including traditionally male subjects such as sciences and physical education.

Grading

Pass grades for the O-level were originally 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. Grades 7, 8 and 9 were fails. Standardized alphabetic grades where introduced with grades A, B, C and D were passes, and E and U (Unclassified) were fails. Over time, grades were allocated on a norm-referenced basis, assigning a fixed proportion of each cohort to each grade (A 10%, B 15%, C 15%...). The proportion obtaining a pass, A-D, or equivalent was initially fixed at 57% - 58%. However, with continuous reformations of the education system, grades were allocated via a criteria referencing system, based on examiner judgement, in the final year DES statistics were available 6.8% achieved an A, and 39.8% an A-C grade.

GCSE Grade		O Level Grade			CSE Grade
		Pre-1975 (numeric)	Pre-1975 (alphabetic)	1975 onwards	1965 onwards
A	A*	1	A	A	1
	A	2	B
B		3	C	B
	B	4
C		5	D	C
	C	6	E
D		7	F	D	2
E	D	8	G	E	3
F	E			U (ungraded)	4
G	F	9	H		5
	G
U (unclassified)					U (ungraded)

• Blue background – certificate and qualification awarded.
• Red background – no certificate or qualification awarded.

Entrants

For subjects where an equivalent CSE paper existed approximately 36% of the pupils entered for either exam sat the O-Level, and the remainder (64%) sat the CSE paper eg.

English O-Level and CSE Mathematics entrants

Year	Pupils	O-Level Maths Candidates	CSE Maths Candidates	Total Candidates	% Maths Papers: O-Level	% Maths Papers: CSE	% Pupils entered for Maths
Pre-1977	751,070	217,560	392,020	609,580	35.7	64.3	81.1
1978	768,460	230,660	414,950	645,610	35.7	64.3	84
1979 onwards	781,240	245,500	438,220	683,720	35.9	64.1	87.5

Later developments

The O-level qualifications in England, Wales and Northern Ireland were replaced by a new system, the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE). However, the O-level is still used in many Commonwealth countries, such as Bangladesh, Mauritius and Singapore. Some British schools also reverted to exams based on the O-levels. The Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination was also benchmarked against the O-levels for comparable subjects. But it has switched to benchmark against the IGCSE. The School Certificate of Mauritius continues to use the O-level exams.

O-levels continue to thrive as well respected international qualifications for students in other countries, who use them for preparation for advanced study in their own country and/or access higher education overseas. Approximately 12 million candidates from more than 200 countries register annually for O-level examinations across the world. Institutions that offer O-levels include Cambridge International Examinations (CIE).

There has been criticism that GCSEs were introduced in order to decrease the rising number of young school leavers and raise pass rates. Among educationalists, there has ever since been an on-going debate on whether or not GCSEs or O Levels were/are of a higher academic standard. The respective debate would often also arouse repeatedly in connection to the on-going grade inflation debate in the British education system.

See also

• List of CIE Ordinary Level subjects
• Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE), an alternative qualification for those who did not take the O-level
• General Certificate of Secondary Education, which replaced the O-levels and CSE
• General Certificate of Education, which comprises O-levels and A-levels
• General Certificate of Education in Singapore