Students have produced record A-level results, reigniting an annual row over whether the benchmark exams have become too easy.

The proportion of pupils passing the exams hit a record 96 per cent this year, up from 95.4 per cent last year, and critics argued that employers and universities are finding it increasingly difficult to select the best candidates.

The government said higher standards of teaching had resulted in rising levels of achievement.

This year 22.4 per cent of students won A grades, up from 21.6 per cent last year and compared with less than 10 per cent 20 years ago.

"By 2007, no one will fail," a headline in the Daily Mirror said, predicting a 100 per cent pass rate in three years' time if the current rate of improvement continued.

The results were the last before a government-appointed working party announces plans for a shake-up of the system, including proposals to replace GCSE and A-level exams with a single diploma system.

David Hart, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said universities and employers were unlikely to look at candidates with less than a C grade.

"Ds and Es are a perfectly good recognition of good teaching and hard work," Hart said. "But I think, inevitably, we're moving to a situation where As, Bs and Cs are going to be regarded as the benchmark."

School Standards Minister David Miliband praised teachers and pupils.

"These results are built on the hard work of students, schools and colleges," Miliband said. "Don't let anyone tell you that standards have dropped because more of you have done well, this is simply a myth. Your hard work has merited success."

The results of the exams -- taken by more than 250,000 students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland -- showed that after years of losing ground to girls, boys improved.

Their pass rate edged up by 0.7 per cent, compared with the girls' increase of 0.4 per cent.

But girls still got better grades. The difference was starkest at the top end, where 71.9 per cent of girls achieved grades A to C, compared with 65.5 per cent of boys.

Religious studies showed the biggest jump in popularity, while law, psychology and media studies continued their rise.

But more students turned their back on "difficult" subjects such as computing, modern languages and physics.-Reuters