Britain's teenagers have notched up record GCSE results, with one in five exams awarded top grades.

Overall 20.7 per cent of grades were at A+ or A, an increase of 1.2 per cent on last year.

More than 65.7 per cent were at grades A+ to C, up from 63.3 per cent last year.

There were more than 5.6 million entries this summer compared with 5.8 million in 2007 - a five-year low.

The Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ), who released the results, said this was due to a decrease in the number of 16-year-olds and pupils being entered early for GCSE English and maths.

There was a massive slump in the numbers of pupils taking information technology - with entries down by more than 14,000.

Modern languages also took another hit, with French down 6.8 per cent on last year and German falling by 5.4 per cent.

The overall pass rate for the proportion of teenagers scoring at least a grade G rose by 0.4 per cent to to 98.4 per cent.

Jim Sinclair, director of the JCQ, said: "Once again, we have seen a welcome increase in results at GCSE despite the lowest entry for five years. This is evidence of the hard work of the students and the continued dedication of their teachers.

"The core subjects at GCSE continue to dominate and still account for almost half of the full course entry."

Junior schools minister Lord Adonis welcomed the results but stressed the importance of vocational courses alongside academic qualifications.

He said: "I think there's a certain amount of inverted snobbery here. The idea that vocational courses like engineering, construction and IT are inherently less worthwhile than French and geography is simply wrong."

"In my view a big historic weakness of the English educational system is that serious vocational lines of learning like engineering, construction and IT have been neglected in our schools."

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