The number of pupils gaining five or more GCSE passes has risen again in Kent, according to the latest set of government school league tables.

New records were set again in 2008 for the number of pupils achieving five or more good passes.

But secondary schools fared less well when it came to the number of pupils who were persistently absent, with a new indicator showing that one in ten pupils at 27 schools were not in class when they could have been.

And new data shows that studying a foreign language appears less popular than ever, with less than a third of pupils passing a modern language GCSE.

Official figures show that across Kent, close to 50 per cent of pupils achieved five or more GCSE passes including maths and English in 2008 at grades A* to C, the government’s favoured measure of performance. That compares with 48.5 per cent the previous year and once again outstripped the national average of 47.6 per cent.

The number of pupils achieving five or more GCSE passes at grades A* to C in all subjects also rose. Across the county’s secondary schools, 67.4 per cent of students reached that level, a 2.5 per cent increase on the previous year. It is the tenth successive year that on this measure, the results have bettered the national average.

There was also some encouraging news for some of the 31 schools in the county identified by the government last year as under-performing in relation to its new national target.

Eight of those on the National Challenge list have already reached the government’s target of having 30 per cent of pupils passing five or more good GCSEs by 2011. There were improvements at 14 others who have yet to do so but at the same time, however, standards fell back at nine on the list.

There was less welcome news for on pupil absences. A new indicator for persistent absences shows that seven per cent of pupils missed more than 48 half-day sessions during the Autumn and Spring terms. At four schools, the figure for persistent absences was even higher with about one in five pupils persistently missing lessons.

The highest absence rate was recorded at Sheppey’s Minster College, where 21 per cent of pupils were persistently out of school. Two of Kent’s newest academies also had some of the poorest attendance figures. At Folkestone Academy and the Marlowe Academy, nearly 18 per cent of pupils were regularly out of class while at Swanley Technical College, the figure was 19 per cent.

In Medway, the number of pupils passing five or more good GCSEs at grades A* to C was 47.6 per cent while the number passing five or more GCSEs in all subjects was 66.5 per cent.