Thousands of pupils who fail to achieve a good GCSE in English and maths will be made to study the subjects for another two years or take high-quality alternative qualifications until they leave school at 18, the education secretary has said.

Michael Gove was responding to a government-commissioned review of vocational qualifications, published in March, which criticised the number of pupils leaving school without a basic grasp of English or maths.

Last summer, 45% of 16-year-olds missed a C grade in the subjects.

From 2015, teenagers will have to stay in education or training until they reach 18.

The review, conducted by Professor Alison Wolf, an expert in public policy at King's College London, also found that up to 400,000 teenagers were wasting their time on college courses that did not lead to jobs or further training.

Gove said the government wanted to ensure that all young people studied maths and English until they got a good qualification. Ideally, that would be a C or better at GCSE, but high-quality alternatives will be identified following a consultation this summer.

He also told MPs a host of vocational courses would no longer count in league tables in order to dissuade schools from entering pupils for courses that were not of a high quality.

"For too long, the vocational education system has been devalued by attempts to pretend that all qualifications are intrinsically the same," he said. "Young people have taken courses that have led nowhere.