Females Edge Males in UACE 2023 Exams

Although female candidates are fewer in number than male candidates, proportionally, they performed better than their male counterparts did in the just released Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UACE), said Dan Odongo, UNEB Executive Director.

Odongo made the revelation on Thursday at the release of the Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education 2023 results.

According to him, a total of 110,553 candidates registered for the 2023 UACE examination from 2,102 centers compared to 97,890 candidates from 1,969 centers in 2022.

“An analysis of the overall candidates’ performance in the examination shows that a very high percentage of candidates (99.1%) qualified for the award of the UACE, just as was in 2022.”

Odongo says 73.7% of the candidates qualify to be admitted at the university level compared to 70.3% in 2022, should the university admissions to degree courses maintain considering 2 Principal A’level passes as the minimum requirement.

According to UNEB, the number of candidates registering and appearing for Mathematics and the Sciences is gradually increasing, with Mathematics showing the greatest promise.

“Another area that requires urgent attention is ICT. Most schools are very ill-equipped in terms of computers and printers required for the practical examination and this greatly impacts the quality of work they present during the examination.”

Minister of Education and Sports, Janet Museveni said Science and Mathematics entries have also increased although “we are not where we want to be exactly. This is a positive development. Having more learners taking Science at this level will provide the desired pool of candidates to take Science-based courses at University and tertiary levels.”

She was pleased to note that the inexplicable decline in candidature which “we have been observing before has been reversed with a significant increase of over 12,000 candidates in last year’s exams.”