UNEB briefs education minister Janet Museveni ahead of UCE release

Education Minister Janet Museveni, flanked by State Minister for Higher Education John Chrysestom Muyingo and UNEB Chairperson Celetino Obua, releases the 2024 UCE results, marking a significant milestone in Uganda’s education sector as the first cohort of students under the new curriculum receive their grades

KAMPALA, Uganda — The leadership of the Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) has met with Education Minister Janet Museveni to deliver a final briefing on the 2025 secondary school results, ahead of their official release this Friday.

The Wednesday afternoon meeting at State House Nakasero is a critical procedural step in a country where national examination results often serve as a high-stakes barometer for government policy and social mobility.

A highly placed source within the examinations body told this website that the results will be formally released on February 13 at 11:00 GMT+3.

The 2025 cycle marks the second time students have been assessed under a new competency-based curriculum, a reform aimed at pivoting the East African nation away from colonial-era rote learning toward practical skills. Under the new framework, continuous assessment scores from individual schools now account for 20 percent of a student’s final grade—a shift that has drawn both praise for its holistic approach and concern over grading uniformity.

The briefing also serves as the first major act for a newly inaugurated 13-member governing board, which was sworn in Monday to oversee the body for the next three years. Professor Celestino Obua, reappointed as chairperson, leads a team tasked with maintaining the integrity of an assessment system that saw 432,025 candidates register this year—a 12.1 percent increase from 2024.

In a notable demographic shift for the region, female candidates slightly outnumbered their male counterparts, making up 51.5 percent of those who sat for the exams.

Once the results are made public on Friday, families across the country will be able to access them via a mobile SMS service, with each inquiry costing 500 Ugandan shillings (approximately $0.13).

The release follows the recent publication of the Primary Leaving Examination (PLE) results, as the government continues to roll out its wider secondary education reforms.