THIS is an extremely important day for young people across the country - the day they find out whether they have been successful in achieving the A-level results which will help them get to where they want to be.

Inevitably, the results will be met with the annual cry that examinations are easier than they used to be.

We prefer to take notice of people like David Heaton, the retiring principal of Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College, in Darlington, who has devoted his working life to education.

Mr Heaton has been a college principal for 21 years and has seen many changes in the education system. He knows how it used to be and how it is now and his assessment is that the pressure on students is higher than ever.

Expectations from universities are higher, with more young people competing for places, and there is a financial burden to be carried at the end of it all.

And yet there will still be those killjoys who will seek to devalue the achievements of colleges such as the record-breaking Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form - and their hard-working students - on the grounds that it has all been made too easy.

Of course it is right that educational standards are debated and questioned.

But today we simply hope that the message which is heard loudest is one of congratulations to those young people who reap the rewards that their efforts deserve.