EMPLOYERS have warned too many Oxford teenagers leave school without the basic skills to start work, after GCSE results again ranked the city among the worst performing areas of the country.

Judged on the number of pupils getting five A*s to C including English and maths, the city slipped in the rankings from the bottom 44 local authority districts in 2009, to the bottom 20 in 2010.

The proportion of pupils achieving this measure improved by only 1.1 percentage points from the previous year, compared to a national rise of 4.1 percentage points.

One employers’ organisation told the Oxford Mail firms were unable to recruit school leavers in Oxford because they lacked the most basic skills.

In Oxford, 45 per cent of 16-year-olds got five A* to C GCSEs including English and maths, compared to 57 per cent across the county, and 54.8 per cent nationwide.

Results have improved year-on-year since 2008.

But a third of pupils left Oxford schools this summer without five A* to C grades in any subjects. Under this measure Oxford city area has risen from being in the bottom three in 2009 to 13th from bottom this year.

Last week, Oxford’s Key Stage Two results were in the bottom 10 per cent nationwide, while Key Stage One results published in November ranked the city as the worst performing area anywhere in England.

The county councillor responsible for school improvement for the last five years, Michael Waine, said: “Overall, students from five out of six secondary schools in Oxford have made very positive progress from Key Stage Two to Key Stage Four when judged by the increase in attainment.”

He highlighted the creation of the new Oxford Spires Academy in January as an example of new initiatives to boost performance.

But the chairman of Oxfordshire’s Federation of Small Businesses, Margaret Coles, said: “One concern is that youngsters coming out of school cannot string a sentence together, cannot add up, and their grammar and writing is terrible. It is very depressing.”

She added: “I have heard Oxford employers say ‘Thank goodness for Poland’ because when they try to recruit locally, young people are not interested or cannot do the job.”

Education data expert Prof John Howson said Oxford risked becoming an “educational laughing stock.”