KAMPALA. The Uganda National Examination Board (UNEB) has said achievement levels in the 2025 Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) examination have improved compared to that of 2024.
The overall results released by the board on Friday, February 13, 2026 show that 428,628 (99.69 per cent) of the candidates who sat in 2025 qualified for the UCE certificate.
“This will be indicated on the Transcript and Certificate as Result 1. The percentage of candidates that do not qualify for the UCE certificate has also dropped very significantly from 1.9 per cent to only 0.31 per cent,” the board’s executive director, Mr Dan Odongo said during the release of the exam results at State Lodge Nakasero in Kampala.
These will, respectively, be shown on their Transcripts as Result 2 or 3. Result 2 indicates that a candidate did not fulfil all the conditions of award; e.g. has no project score, has sat for fewer subjects or has no CA scores.
Result 3 is for a candidate who has scored below basic (i.e. E) in all the subjects.
Female candidates demonstrated higher achievement levels in English Language and Christian Religious Education. In the other subjects; History and Political Education, Geography, Mathematics, Agriculture, Physics, Chemistry and Biology, the proportions of females in the exceptional and outstanding levels are slightly lower than that of males.
At the Uganda Government Upper Prison School, Luzira, 40 candidates were registered. Of the 40 candidates who registered, 39 candidates sat; while one did not sit for the examination. All the candidates qualified for the UCE certificate.
At Mbarara Main Prison Inmates’ Secondary School, 12 candidates were registered and they all sat for the examination. All of them also qualified for the UCE certificate.
A total of 432,163 candidates from 3,975 examination centres registered for the UCE 2025 examination, compared to 359,417 candidates in 2024, an increase of 72,746 (20.2 per cent). Of these 204,292 (47.3 per cent) were males, while 227,871 (52.7 per cent) were females. 154,642 (35.8 per cent) were beneficiaries of the USE programme and277,521 (64.2 per cent) were Non-USE. A total of 429,949 (99.5 per cent) candidates were present for the examination in 2025 compared to 357,120 in 2024. Only 2,214 (0.5 per cent) were absent. Just like in 2024, the rate of absenteeism continues to drop.