They want a quarter of pupils in every school to manage this - but in almost a sixth of schools they did not.
Yet many do well on a new "value added" measure taking account of factors such as gender, ethnicity and deprivation.
The tables confirm that, across the country, 45.8% of pupils at the end of Key Stage 4 of the national curriculum attained the equivalent of five GCSEs at grade C or above including English and maths. The director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, David Frost, said this figure was "shocking".
Related articles:
