More girls completed education cycle in 2024—UNEB

__________________

More girls completed the primary education cycle than boys, the Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) has said.

According to the national examinations body, in 2024, analysis by gender shows that 378,709 (47.5%) boys were registered compared to 418,750 (52.5%) girls, indicating that more girls than boys completed the Primary Education cycle. 

"This has been the trend in recent years. The percentage was 52.3% for the girls in 2023 whereas for the boys was 47.7%," UNEB executive secretary Dan Odongo reported to First Lady and the Minister of Education and Sports Mrs Janet Museveni during the official release of the Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE) results.

During the event, which was at State House Nakasero in Kampala on January 23, 2025, Odongo also said 91.8% of the 786,981 who sat for the Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE) in 2024 passed and are fit to join secondary school.

UNEB registered 3,328 learners with special needs (SNE) of various categories, including the blind, the deaf, the physically handicapped and the dyslexics, compared to 2,652 in 2023. This, according to the UNEB boss is an increase of 25.5%.

Special needs candidates

“The number of SNE candidates continues to increase annually due to the awareness that has now been created in the schools by UNEB, and the ministry of education and sports,” Odongo said.

Out of these, he said that female SNE candidates constituted 47.9% and 52.1% were male.

He went on to report that the board also registered 71 candidates from Uganda Government Upper Prison, Luzira (70 males and 1 female), and 37 from Mbarara Main Prison (all males).

“It is worth noting that the Prison Service is extending the opportunity for inmates to acquire education as they serve their time,” he said.

He reported that a higher proportion of the 2024 candidates passed in division two and above level.

Improved performance

“Overall, the performance of candidates is better than that of 2023. A higher proportion of the candidates passed (91.8%) compared to 2023 (88.0%). There is a drop in the number of candidates obtaining Division one,” he said.

The UNEB boss reported that overall better performance had been recorded in Social Studies and Religious Studies, Integrated Science and Mathematics.

“There was an overall drop in performance in English compared to 2023. It should be noted that distinction scores have dropped in all the subjects. This reflects the difficulties that candidates had with questions needing higher ability levels (application questions),” Odongo said.

The highest score in PLE is four aggregates where a candidate scores a distinction one in every of the four subjects. The least score is 36 aggregates meaning that the candidate scores pass 9 (U) in each of every four subjects.

Save for English, UNEB boss indicated that boys had outperformed the girls in the three classes at both lower and upper grades.

In English, 4.6 of the boys at least scored a distinction two while 5.1 of the girls scored a similar score.

In all the subjects, boys registered more distinctions in Mathematics, 9.2%, while females’ distinctions were registered in SST (6.9%). The 5.8% of the girls passed Mathematics with distinctions.

While releasing the results, the First Lady expressed gratitude that now the UPE is increasingly contributing candidates for PLE.

“It is good to note now that our universal education policy has enabled more children to attend school as seen from the significant increase in candidature and decrease in dropout in absenteeism which is now at only 1.3% as we heard from Mr. Odongo,” she said while celebrating the steady decline in absenteeism for the last five years from the peak of 1.8% in 2019.