Overall achievement at GCSE level is down for the first time in three years, the latest exam results have revealed.

As students await their results the government has announced that the pass rate has fallen to 97.6 per cent.

This represents a small reduction after three years at a constant pass rate of 97.9 per cent.

Whilst the number of entrants achieving top grades has increased to 58.1 per cent, the increase is smaller than in previous years.

The data also reveals a further drop in the number of pupils securing good grades in maths.

The proportion of GCSE maths entries awarded a C or better is down by 1.1 per cent to just 50.2 per cent.

That data has prompted business leaders to call for urgent action to address the issue.

Nearly 30,000 pupils will leave school with no GCSEs at all, the figures are expected to show.

Education secretary Charles Clarke praised students for their performance despite the recent dip in achievement.

"Today we applaud these good results and praise the candidates and their teachers who have worked so hard to achieve them," he said.

"GCSEs provide a valuable record of young people's progress and that is why we have set a tough challenge for increasing the number of young people achieving five or more top grade GCSEs.

"I am confident that our secondary school reforms will help drive up standards even higher at GCSE in the future.

"I am encouraged by the progress in this year's 14-year-old tests where we have seen the best ever results."

"We have a clear route to tackling the gap in achievement between boys and girls.

"We know that boys don't work well if left alone but do respond well to strong discipline, individual attention, clear goals and high expectations."

Shadow education secretary Damian Green said the data revealed falling standards in many areas.

"The gap between the best and the worst is widening under Labour. With more than 30,000 pupils leaving school last year alone with no qualifications, the figure looks likely to increase this year," he said.

"Unless this damaging trend is reversed we will continue to allow generations to drift out of mainstream society and into crime.

"Despite all the extra spending and target setting the government is still failing to deliver.

"These figures come at the end of two weeks when A Levels have been downgraded by universities, primary school targets have been missed for the second year running, and the whole future of GCSEs has been called into question."

Liberal Democrats said there were still issues of concern in areas such as maths. "This is clearly the challenge for schools and for ministers," said education spokesman Phil Willis.

"We have to ensure that pupils have a curriculum that is appropriate. Where pupils are performing badly, a common factor is not primarily wealth or gender, but that they are alienated from the curriculum.

"Liberal Democrats believe that the age-related GCSE should be abolished and replaced by flexible national standard tests in core subjects.

"That will open the door to more teaching and less testing, and will give children the core skills that universities and employers alike need."

Commenting on the reduction in performance in maths, a spokesman for the CBI said: "It is good to see the successes of many young people but too high a number still perform poorly in English and maths.

"Eradicating this problem should be the government's top priority. A grade C or above in these core subjects is becoming the threshold for employment."

Sir Tom Shebbeare, chief executive of The Prince's Trust, said the number of young people leaving education with no qualifications was "a worrying trend".

"Our own research shows that young people's biggest barrier to success is their lack of qualifications," he said.

"The government needs to focus more on a flexible education with ongoing and tangible incentives to encourage and engage more young people to remain in education."