KAMPALA, Uganda — Failure rates for the Uganda Certificate of Education reached a historic low this year, with only 0.31% of candidates failing to qualify for a certificate, according to results released Friday by the Uganda National Examinations Board.
The 2025 results show a dramatic improvement from 2024, when the failure rate stood at 1.9%. UNEB Executive Director Dan N. Odongo reported that out of the 429,949 candidates who sat for the examinations, 428,628 reached the competency levels required to be awarded a certificate.
The sharp decline in failures coincides with the second year of the Competency Based Curriculum. Under this framework, 20% of a student’s final mark is derived from continuous assessment at the school level, while the remaining 80% comes from the national end-of-cycle examination.
Registration for the 2025 exams surged by more than 20%, with 432,163 students enrolling compared to 359,417 the previous year. Despite the larger pool of candidates, the vast majority successfully met the standards for Result 1, which denotes qualification for the UCE certificate.
Only 1,321 candidates fell into the Result 2 or Result 3 categories. Result 2 indicates a student did not fulfill all award conditions, such as missing a project or continuous assessment score, while Result 3 is reserved for those who score below the basic competency level in all subjects.
Odongo noted that the overall achievement levels have improved across most subjects. Exceptional achievement was particularly high in English language, geography and Christian religious education. While science performance showed a significant drop in students failing to reach the basic D level, examiners observed that many learners still struggle to apply scientific concepts to real-life problem solving.
The data also revealed strong performances among vulnerable groups. In the Uganda prison system, 51 out of 52 registered inmates qualified for their certificates. Similarly, 98.2% of the 708 registered special needs candidates were successful, supported by UNEB provisions such as Braille papers and sign language interpreters.
Malpractice remains a minor issue at this level, with only 63 cases reported nationwide. Most incidents involved science practicals, where investigators found evidence of students being given results to copy rather than conducting their own experiments.
UNEB has made the 2025 results available digitally through school portals. Parents and students can also receive their individual scores via mobile phone by texting UCE, followed by the candidate’s full index number, to 6600 on the MTN or Airtel networks.
