KAMPALA
The Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) has released the 2025 Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UACE) results, revealing how female candidates have once again outperformed the male candidates.
The results have been officially released on Friday 13th March 2026 during a ceremony at State House Nakasero, presided over by the Minister of Education and Sports, Janet Museveni.
According to statistics released by UNEB Executive Director Dan Odongo, a total of 166,400 candidates registered for the 2025 examinations, marking a significant 17.2 percent increase from the 141,996 candidates who registered in 2024. Of the registered pool, 93,636 (56.3 percent) were male, while 72,764 (43.7 percent) were female.
Despite the higher enrollment of male students, the board noted that female candidates demonstrated superior academic efficiency.
The percentage passes at the upper levels (3P and 2P) are higher, while the percentage passes at the lower levels and the failure rate among female candidates are lower than for the males,” Mr. Odongo stated during the release.
The performance breakdown revealed that female candidates excelled at the principal level pass (A–E) in the majority of humanities subjects. Remarkably, they also recorded stronger performance at this level in Mathematics, Physics, General Paper, Subsidiary Mathematics, and Subsidiary ICT.
However, the report highlighted a persistent gender gap at the highest distinction levels in science-based subjects. Mr. Odongo noted that male candidates still maintained an edge in achieving the top “A” grade in Mathematics and the Sciences.
“At the top level of A passes, the males scored better than the females in Mathematics and the Sciences,” the Executive Director explained. He further observed that female candidature in these core STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) subjects remains lower than that of males, a trend attributed to the overall lower female enrollment in the UACE examinations.
Overall, the 2025 results indicate a record improvement in university eligibility, with approximately 68.6 percent (113,291 candidates) qualifying for degree program admissions, up from 65.5 percent the previous year.
Table 1: UACE 2025 PERFORMANCE
The board also noted that examination malpractice remained remarkably low, affecting only 0.2 percent of the total candidature. The results of 351 candidates have been withheld pending further investigations.
Source: UNEB