FOR most of us, the mere mention of school exams brings back memories of fear and loathing. So I apologise, in advance, for raising the issue.

But I feel driven to do so because of some of the highly critical reaction from some newspapers and politicians to the excellent exam results that thousands of pupils in East Lancashire and across the country achieved this summer.

If you listen to some commentators, today's exam results are not worth the paper they are written on. Standards have fallen, they say, and exams are far easier than they were 10 or 20 years ago.

Some even suggest that improved results represent a political conspiracy to help the Government win the next general election.

What these sort of gratuitous attacks do for those pupils and students who took exams this summer will vary.

Some will rightly ignore it. But I expect many - together with parents and teachers - will receive them with bewilderment, or even hurt.

After all, most of those who got good results will have worked very hard for many years. To have that effort and achievement belittled is frankly appalling.

It is often said that we in Britain belittle our success. I'm not so sure. After all, we were delighted with the British Olympians in Greece.

Stars like Kelly Holmes and Amir Khan did us proud - and we all shared in their joy and success.

And if David Beckham and the England football team lift the World Cup in Berlin in 2006, I wouldn't expect too much questioning of their victory. But, for some, academic success appears fair game.

This carping about exam results comes in the face of Ofsted's view - the impartial education standards ombudsman - which said the standard of teaching in schools today has never been higher.

That's also my view both as a parent whose two children have gone through GCSEs and A-levels, and as Blackburn's MP.

I speak to pupils, teachers and parents and it is clear to me that rising standards at all levels of our education system is down to hard work.

For Dr David Hempsall, headteacher of Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, the rise in pupils getting the top grades is because "teachers have become more adept at teaching candidates to work to the exam criteria."

Most parents would, I suspect, say "three cheers" to that. And the exam bashers should not get too carried away.

To hear some of them you would have thought that this year's results had seen twice as many pupils get As as the year before. In fact, the number rose by just 0.8 per cent, and the overall pass rate of A-levels rose from 95.4 per cent to 96 per cent.

This to me looks like steady progress, something to be celebrated and applauded.

The results are a tribute to teachers and schools. But most of all they are a tribute to the pupils themselves for their hard work and dedication.

If any are reading this, my message is simple: don't let anyone tell you standards have dropped, and well for the success this summer.

You deserve it.