Sussex bosses are worried the high number of GCSE and A-level passes in schools and colleges mean the exams have been made too easy.

The concerns were expressed after a senior exam marker claimed standards were being fixed because schools were shopping around for easier exams to maintain places in league tables.

Jeffrey Robinson said 12 years ago a score of 65 per cent would equal a C grade but last year just 45 per cent would get the same grade.

He said schools were under pressure from ministers to ensure 25 per cent of pupils achieved five A* to C grades within the next five years.

He claimed pupils could get a C in GCSE maths with an 18 per cent pass rate and without knowing algebra or basic maths like percentages.

Michael Evans, chairman of the Sussex branch of the Institute of Directors (IoD), said while members congratulated students on their achievements, there was a feeling that exams had been down-valued.

The A-level pass rate was 89.8 per cent this year, continuing the upward trend that began in the early Eighties.

In 1982, the figure was just 70 per cent and the number of passes at grade A went up from 12 per cent in 1990 to 18.6 per cent this year.

Mr Evans said: "We congratulate successful students and certainly don't want to discourage teachers but we believe the rising pass rates are symptomatic of endemic and rampant grade inflation.

"There is little evidence that standards are being maintained, let alone improved.

"Standards seem to be slipping and employers are finding potential recruits with fistfuls of qualifications who still lack basic employability skills.

"There is little doubt that syllabuses have been diluted over the past 20 years.

"A-levels used to be a highly discriminatory standard to identify undergraduates for a highly selective university system.

"This is no longer the case. They are now designed for an age of mass entrance into universities.

"As the university system has changed so have A-levels - they have been dumbed down. The induction of the Advanced Extension Awards is an admission that A-levels are not what they were."

But the IoD feels the debate about whether standards has fallen is leading nowhere.

Mr Evans said: "We have some very good schools in Sussex but there is a need for a thorough review of our secondary schooling.

"The tendency for an increasing number of pupils to take GCSEs early is one more sign that GCSEs don't stretch academically-inclined children when taken at 16.

"The gender gap, although it is closing, is still worryingly high.

"There have been attempts to develop a vocational pathway in schools but much still needs to be done. We need to develop a respected and challenging vocational pathway, as, for example, in Germany.

"Such a pathway would have the added advantage of reducing boys' disaffection with schooling.

"Then we could toughen up the academic pathway, making it more demanding for academically-inclined children."

Former chief inspector of schools Chris Woodhead said the Government should take the allegations of falling examination standards seriously.