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A shake-up of the exam system, unveiled by Education Secretary Michael Gove, will mean a single end-of-course exam and one exam board for each subject.
Pupils beginning secondary school this year will take the first new exams - in English, maths and sciences - in 2017.
Mr Gove told MPs that GCSEs had been designed "for a different age and a different world".
The education secretary said the changes would modernise the exam system "so we can have truly rigorous exams, competitive with the best in the world, and making opportunity more equal for every child".
Labour's shadow education secretary, Stephen Twigg, attacked the plans as "totally out of date, from a Tory-led government totally out of touch with modern Britain".
He also criticised the repeated leaking of the plans to scrap GCSEs which he said meant that such changes avoided proper parliamentary scrutiny.
Mr Twigg accused the education secretary of trying to introduce changes for future exams while he was still grappling with the "fiasco" of this year's GCSE results.
The changes will mean that the current system of assessing individual units of a course will be replaced by a single final exam.
Parents could be forgiven for thinking that reforms in the exam system have become their own kind of never-ending continuous assessment.
And anyone with a child in secondary school will be wary of upheaval and uncertainty about the value of taking GCSE exams which are headed for the scrap heap.
But there are some important changes set to be introduced.
The shift to a single end-of-course exam will end the baffling jigsaw of different units and pick 'n' mix results.
Changing to a single exam board should bring greater clarity to what is being taught and to what standard.
Allowing the exam to be taken at different age points is another interesting innovation, as the leaving age is raised to 18.
It will also mark a further fragmentation within the UK - with devolution taking the exam systems in increasingly different directions.
Another significant shift is the recognition that standards need to be measured against international standards. Like the economy, competition in education is now global.
The first pupils would begin studying these exams in 2015 - with the first candidates taking the new-look exams in 2017. This will initially only be in three core subject areas - English, maths and sciences - suggesting that GCSEs in other subjects will continue beyond this date.
There will be one exam board for each subject - rather than having different exam boards competing with their own versions.
This follows concerns that such competition leads to a "race to the bottom", with an incentive for exam boards to attract more business by making it easier to pass.
The grading system will change with top results awarded a Grade 1 rather than the current A*.
But despite an earlier leak claiming that there would be a two-tier system - similar to the old O-levels and CSEs - the new qualification will be a single exam for a wide range of abilities.
To allow weaker pupils to catch up, the exam could be taken at different points between 16 and 18 years of age.
The changes to the GCSE exam will come alongside the raising of the leaving age - which will see young people staying in education and training until the age of 18.
Mr Clegg said the changes would "raise standards for all our children", but he added that it would "not exclude any children".
He said it would have been wrong to go back the old dual exam system - and set out what he hoped would be gained from the revised GCSEs.
"Firstly give parents confidence in the exams their children are taking, secondly raise standards for all our children in schools in the country but thirdly and crucially not exclude any children from the new exam system."
When more details of the new exam were leaked at the weekend, Labour said it supported more rigorous exams but only if they do not act as a cap on aspiration.
It is also likely to mark an even greater divide between education systems within the UK - with Wales and Northern Ireland so far set to continue with GCSEs.
The Welsh government says it will not be rushed into following any changes to the GCSE and is carrying out its own separate review into the exam system.
Changes to the GCSE in England would not apply to Northern Ireland.
Former chief inspector of schools Sir Mike Tomlinson - who conducted a review of the exam system for the previous government - told BBC Radio 4's Today programme he thought the planned change was "largely positive".
He backed the move away from a modular system and plans for there to be only one board to examine in English, mathematics or the sciences.
But he questioned how subjects that do not lend themselves to a single exam, such as art and dance, would be tested in a single exam.
Brian Lightman, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said GCSEs needed to be reviewed but bringing back an O-level style exam was not the answer.
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"I hope that these proposals are not going to be telling us that we're going to have a system that goes back to something that we used to have in the 1950s, which was suited to a very small part of the population," he said.
The National Union of Teachers warned of an "inherent contradiction" in the criticism of GCSEs - saying that it was "nonsensical" to expect higher pass rates from schools while at the same time saying that any such improvement was evidence of exams becoming easier.
Martin Johnson of the ATL teachers' union warned against a "short-term political fix by ignorant ministers".
"Tinkering with exams is a cheap and relatively easy lever for governments, which has been used and over-used in the past couple of decades. What would make a real, long-term difference to raising standards for all children would be improving the teaching and learning in all schools - but that's long, and hard, and expensive," said Kevin Stannard of the Girls' Day School Trust.
The plan to reform the exam system comes amid controversy over this year's GCSE English exams - with head teachers claiming that grade boundaries have been unfairly altered.
The exam regulator in England has refused to regrade the disputed papers - but the Welsh government has instructed the WJEC examining board to carry out a regrading in Wales.
In Scotland, pupils take Standard Grades, Highers and Advanced Highers rather than GCSEs and A-levels.
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