A SOARING number of private schools are abandoning "mindless" A-levels and GCSEs in favour of harder courses.

Rival international qualifications are seen as tougher than the mainstream exams, which many teachers believe have become easier in recent years.

Both the International Baccalaureate diploma for sixth-formers and the International GCSE - which has been likened to the old O-level - are in growing demand.

The findings are in a new analysis by the Independent Schools Council. They follow another summer of record GCSE and A-level results.

Ministers have hailed the rising number of top grades at A-level and GCSE as evidence of improving standards. But the ISC found that:

●Between 2007 and 2008, 31 per cent more private schools entered pupils for International GCSEs.

●Half of the 570 ISC schools questioned entered pupils for International GCSEs and more than 40,000 of the exams were taken in private schools this year.

●Twice as many independent school teenagers took the International Baccalaureate instead of A-levels this year than in 2007.

At King's College School in Wimbledon, all sixth-formers followed the International Baccalaureate for the first time this year. Headmaster Andrew Halls said: "There is a growing awareness that the A-level is not fit for purpose."

One in four A-levels now awarded is a grade A - meaning top universities struggle to pick out the best students.

"But more important than that, the syllabuses are veering towards the mindless," Mr Halls said. "They are nothing like what an A-level syllabus was 20 years ago. Bright boys and girls are really not stimulated by them."

He warned schools were put off by the increasing emphasis on retaking exams, with A-levels and now GCSEs becoming modular. The International Baccalaureate is attractive in part as it is seen as "independent" from the Government. It is available at more than 100 independent and state schools in Britain.

Pupils study six subjects, which must include a foreign language, a science, a humanity and maths.

Many leading private schools, including St Paul's in Barnes, Eton, North London Collegiate School, and Dulwich College have opted for the International GCSE in some subjects.

But because ministers refuse to accredit the exam for use in league tables, some leading schools do not appear in official rankings. The ISC report said it was time this changed, particularly when "rumours of grade inflation are rife" in the conventional exams.

The study suggested standards in GCSE maths had been "slipping" in recent years. To score a grade A* in GCSE maths, pupils needed 80 per cent of the available marks in 2000, but just 70 per cent by 2006. A spokeswoman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said: "GCSEs are a high-quality qualification, well-recognised by employers and higher education."

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