TOMORROW, as the A-level results are announced, thousands of students will be celebrating the rewards of their hard work - more than ever before, in fact, as yet another record pass-rate is expected.

This is sure to fuel the annual controversy over whether the "gold standard" examination of mainstream education is getting easier and whether, in turn, A-level qualifications are becoming increasingly devalued.

Evidence today suggests that a thorough investigation is needed of the entry qualifications to higher education and of those granted by higher education itself to discover whether students' certificates are a true reward for their labours.

For, if serious devaluation is taking place in A-levels and degree awards, it will ultimately rob students of career opportunities if employers become increasingly sceptical of their qualifications. And it will ill serve the country's future prosperity if the education system is churning out school-leavers and graduates rich in certificates, but poor in actual achievement.

For today we find evidence of erosion in university standards and doubts cast on the quality of their degrees.

Many universities are being accused of "dumbing down" by accepting pupils with lower A-level grades, making their courses less demanding and awarding better-than-deserved marks.

One evident reason for this is that higher education has become a market in which universities and colleges are competing for the revenue that comes with each student.

Yet if this evidence of "dumbing down," revealed in a study by the Higher Education Funding Council, is alarming, even more so are the consequences disclosed in another report today.

This shows that the high-earning professions are tending increasingly to recruit from the traditional universities - the ones that demand top A-level grades of their undergraduates.

In short, though more pupils are passing the A-level test for access to higher education, a clear distrust is emerging of the qualifications many go on to earn as a result.

Now, with the government moving to axe the A-levels - though, perhaps, not by name - to give young people a broader-based education, the need to retain the credibility of the qualification is being clearly spelled out.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.