Asia
Cambridge IGCSE Results Reach 315,000 Students as Asia Entries Keep Climbing
Schools across the region collected results this week in what Cambridge says was another year of rising entries, with China among the fastest-growing markets and computer-science take-up accelerating.
More than 315,000 students in 144 countries received their Cambridge IGCSE and O Level results on 18 August, according to Cambridge International, with total IGCSE entries reaching 757,000, up three percent on 2025, and O Level entries rising two percent to 231,100.
Across Asia, British-curriculum schools from Hong Kong to Bangkok use the IGCSE as the gateway qualification into sixth form. The most-entered subjects globally were mathematics, physics, first-language English, chemistry and biology, a course diet that maps closely onto what international school students across the region actually sit.
China among the fastest-growing markets
Cambridge named China as one of the high-growth countries behind the entry increase, attributing the gains to the expanding number of international schools, including UK independent schools extending their curriculum franchises and school groups deploying capital into new campuses. The greater bay area, Shanghai and Beijing together account for a significant share of Asia's IGCSE cohort, and that share is rising as more families, both expatriate and locally based, look to international qualifications for university progression.
Regional schools also reported individual results this week. At Singapore International School Hong Kong, 73.4 percent of grades were distinctions, with 45.7 percent at A star, and more than half the cohort earned eight or more distinctions across all their subjects.
Edexcel results followed two days later
Pearson Edexcel candidates received their International GCSE results on 20 August, completing a results week that has become a fixture of the Asia international school calendar. The Edexcel qualification is particularly prominent in Thailand and Vietnam, where several recently opened British-curriculum schools adopted the Pearson pathway when building their secondary programmes. Together, the two results days land squarely in the final stretch of the summer holiday, giving students a short window before term begins before they learn how their university prospects look.