Over 100,000 pass senior six exams - Uneb

A total of 108,492 students out of the 109,488 who turned up for the 2023 Uganda Advanced Certificate of Examinations (UACE) passed with a higher percentage qualifying to join university and other tertiary institutions, according to Uganda National Examinations Board (Uneb).

Of these, 52,452 students passed with 3 Principal passes, 28,191 with 2-Principal passes, and 18,624 had one principal pass. At least 9,225 students passed with one subsidiary while 996 students failed the exams for which 110,553 learners registered.

Speaking at the release of the UACE exams on Thursday, Uneb executive director Dan Odongo said that 99 per cent of the candidates qualify for the UACE certificate.

“University admissions to degree courses have, up to date, been considering 2 Principal level passes as the minimum requirement. If this consideration is maintained, 80,643 (73.7%) qualify to be admitted, compared to 67,815 (70.3%) in 2022,” he explained.

He added: “This is consistent with the fact that there was better overall performance and a significant increase in entries for the examination in 2023. In cases where one Principal and two Subsidiary passes levels are considered for admission to other tertiary institutions, 90.7% of the candidates will qualify. This is better when compared to 2022 with 89.3%.”

Female candidates, he said despite being few compared to their male counterparts, performed better.

“The percentage passes at the upper levels (3P and 2P) are higher, while percentage passes at the lower levels and failure rate among female candidates are lower than for the males. This has been the observed trend in the last three years,” he said.

Generally, Uneb noted a 12, 663 (12.9%) increase in the number of candidates registered for 2023 UACE as compared to 2022. Of these, 47,226 (42.7 percent) were females and 63,339 male. 

“Candidates who appeared for the examination were 109,488, compared to 96,557 in 2022, an increase of 12,931 candidates (13.4%). Of these, 46,860 (42.8%) were females and 62,628 (57.2%) were males. At this level, the number of female candidates has consistently been much lower than that of the males,” he said.

He noted that the number of candidates registered under the UPOLET programme was 24,679, (22.3 percent) of the total candidature compared to 17,321 (17.7%) in 2022.

“Of the candidates registered under the UPOLET programme, 16,008 (14.5%) of the total candidature were males and only 8,671 (7.8%) were females. The greater number of students at UACE are not under the universal education programme, much less, the females. This may be related to the types of schools that offer UACE,” he said