KAMPALA, UGANDA: The Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) Thursday released the official results of the 2023 Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UACE) examinations portraying a notable trend in candidate performance compared to the previous years.
The UNEB Executive Secretary Mr Dan Odongo while speaking at the results release noted that out of 108,492 students who sat the S.6 examinations last year, a total of 109,488 passed with a higher percentage (99%) which qualifies them to join university and other tertiary institutions.
“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 said.
“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 pass 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%,” he added.
As was the case in the 2022 UACE, Odongo revealed that female candidates in the 2023 UACE examinations proportionally (in terms of percentages) performed better than the males at all levels, and have shown a lower failure rate.
“Although female candidates are fewer in number than the male candidates, proportionally, they performed better than their male counterparts did. The percentage of 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.,” Mr Odongo remarked on Thursday.
Mr Odongo noted that the number of candidates registering and appearing for Mathematics and the Sciences are gradually increasing, with Mathematics showing the greatest promise. However, he said the numbers in general have remained well below half of the total candidature.
This, according to him is consistent with the fact that pass rates in these subjects in the Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) examination have also been low, impacting the transition to UACE.
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.
Prof Celestino Obua, the Board Chairperson at UNEB in his remarks acknowledged the fact that entries for Sciences at UÁCE continue to be lower than for Humanities but was grateful for the growing numbers and the improved performance, especially at the upper level of candidates obtaining 3 Principal passes.
“We note that, once again. female candidates have performed better, Proportionally, than the males at all levels and have shown a lower failure rate. Even at individual subject levels, they have shown a better Performance,” Prof Obua said.
“However, we continue to see a low percentage of the female Candidates at this level offering Mathematics and Science combinations. The paradox, Honourable Minister. is that the girls who offer the STEM subjects perform well, if not better than the boys. Why then do the girls shy away from these subjects?”
2023 UACE in Figures
According to statistics released by UNEB, a total of 110,553 candidates registered for the 2023 UACE examination across 2,102 centres, marking a significant increase of 12,663 candidates (12.9%) compared to the previous year. The gender distribution among candidates showed 42.7% females and 57.3% males, indicating a slightly higher male enrollment.
How to Check 2023 UACE Results
S.6 candidates can discover how they performed in their 2023 UACE Exams by getting their results via Short Message Services (SMS) on mobile phones following the procedure below;
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Go to SMS and type “UACE,” leave a space, then type index number for example UACE U2769/018 and send it to 6600 on networks as will be specified by the board at the time of the release of the results.
