Girls outshine boys as 2024 UACE results are released

14 March 2025, 3:47 pm

By Sarah Ejang

The 2024 Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UACE) exam results, released on Friday, indicate that girls have continued to outperform their male counterparts.

According to the results, 26,928 girls (43.7%) passed with three principal passes, compared to 34.6% of boys.

The number of girls who attained two principal passes was 43,890, representing 71.2%, which is higher than the 48,383 boys, representing 61.1%.

This shows that the percentage of passes at the upper levels (3P and 2P) is higher for female candidates than for males.

Proportionally, females performed better than their male counterparts at the principal level pass (A–E) in all humanities subjects, Physics, and General Paper.

The Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) Executive Director, Dan Odongo, stated that this trend has persisted for many years.

He noted, however, that female participation in sciences and mathematics remains lower than that of males, as is the case with overall female enrollment.

Odongo highlighted a positive development: the number of female candidates taking sciences and mathematics has steadily increased over the past five years.

For example, the number of female candidates taking Mathematics has grown from 8,942 in 2019 to 10,873 in 2020, 11,930 in 2022, 14,654 in 2023, and 19,863 last year.

In Physics, the number of female candidates increased from 2,058 in 2019 to 2,814 in 2020, 2,451 in 2022, 3,804 in 2023, and 5,836 last year.

The results also indicate that of the 48 candidates who sat for the exams in prison, 93.8% were male. Of these, 25 candidates (52.1%) obtained three principal passes.

“All qualified for the UACE certificate. Only one candidate did not sit for the examination,” Odongo said.