General Certificate of Education

The General Certificate of Education (GCE) is a subject-specific family of academic qualifications used in awarding bodies in England, Wales, Northern Ireland, Crown dependencies and a few Commonwealth countries. For some time, the Scottish education system has been different from those in the other countries of the United Kingdom.

The GCE is currently composed of three main levels; they are, in increasing order of difficulty:

• the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE)
• the Advanced Subsidiary Level ("A1 Level" or "AS Level"), higher than the O Level, serving as a level in its own right, and functioning as a precursor to the full Advanced Level; and
• Advanced Level ("A Level").

Variations of the GCE system in commonwealth countries tend to replace the GCSE with international alternatives, such as the IGCSE and even in some cases, the Cambridge O-Level series, a derivative of the now-abolished GCE Ordinary Level qualifications offered in the United Kingdom.

The General Certificate of Education Advanced Level (GCE "A Levels") is an entry qualification for universities in the United Kingdom and many other locations worldwide.