Published on 11/02/2025
Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) has officially released the 2024 Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) exam results.
The double release includes the results of the first cohort of learners for the New Lower Secondary Curriculum (NLSC) and the results for the last cohort of learners for the Old Curriculum (Transitional) Examination.
Prof. Celestino Obua-UNEB chairperson “As a result of our experience gained through interaction with the teachers, the learners and some parents, we can say with complete confidence that this is a good curriculum. The products of the curriculum have more confidence, can communicate better, have developed the skills to do research and projects in various areas and have learnt how to learn.
Just like the public had wondered how these learners would transit to the next level, we as a Board had also silently agonised about the fate of the learners who would transition to UACE to a curriculum that was still rooted in the same old format that the learners had no longer interacted with. The Board is glad Mama, that you gave the necessary guidance to the National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) and substantial changes have been made to the UACE curriculum with which these learners will now interact when they transition to that level in a few weeks from now.
“The reporting of the achievement levels has changed from the stanine system of 1 to 9 (Distinctions, Credits, Pass and Fail) used in the previous content-based curriculum to letter grades, A, B, C, D and E.
The details of these will be given by the Executive Director in the Statement of Release of the Results. The Transcript (used to be Result Slip) and certificate will also change in content presentation. In arriving at the decision to adopt the letter grades format, the Board considered several options with various amounts of content.
The Board’s decision was guided by the following considerations: (i) the report/transcript/certificate issued must be simple for all stakeholders to easily understand. (ii) the descriptors – explanations of the meaning of the grades – should be positive on what the holder of the certificate can do.
UNEB ED Dan Odongo says, “A total of 10,141 candidates from 1,028 centres registered for the examination of whom 4,369 (43.1%) were males and 5,373 (52.9%) were females. 813 (8.0%) are beneficiaries of the USE programme and 8,929 (88.o %) are Non-USE. Of the total number registered, 9,742 (96.1%) sat for the examination (4,369 males and 5,373 females). 399 did not avail themselves the opportunity yet again.
Odongo says, “Honourable Minister of Education and Sports, the Uganda National Examinations Board presents to you the Results of the 2024 Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) examination. The examination was conducted successfully under the theme: Embracing security and holistic assessment of learners in a dynamic environment. The theme enjoined all concerned to accept the essence of security at all stages of the examination process.
It emphasizes the assessment of the whole person, the cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains. Assessment is taking place in a rapidly changing environment driven by rapid developments in technology. We must be alive to these realities. These are the Results of the first cohort of candidates under the competency-based curriculum that we are presenting to you. We are excited that we have finally got to this point.
Odongo Says, “The Board had to build capacity of its staff, given that the assessment of the curriculum would fundamentally shift from what was then in practice. Secondly, the Board embarked on development of a format for students’ identification to facilitate registration of Senior Three and Senior Four learners; and tracking of their CA scores in all the schools, notjust the ones which had UNEB examination centres.
Therefore, a unique format of numbers to identify learners in schools without UNEB centres was also developed. This was then followed by developing assessment tools, guidelines, training materials, capacity building for teachers as item writers and scorers, benchmarking to pick best practices, and sensitization of key education stakeholders.
Odongo says, “The new curriculum, being skills-based, requires that science labs and workshops are well-equipped to give the learners enough chance to create new knowledge through self-learning. Unfortunately, many rural and private schools lack these and are also short of science teachers. Along the way, we also discovered that some schools appeared to be resisting the change to the new curriculum.
They were stuck to teaching the old curriculum with the hope that Government would retract the new curriculum, given the challenges that were evident at the start of the implementation of the curriculum. They were surprised when the Board released the sample examination papers. These challenges impacted greatly the candidates’ achievement in Sciences. Despite these challenges, the new competency-based curriculum assessment has been successful.
A total of 359,417 candidates were registered as the first cohort for the examination. Of these, 177,133 (49-3%) were males, while 182,284 (50.7%) were females. 136,785 (38.1%) were beneficiaries of the USE programme, and 222,632 (61.9%) were non-USE. A total of 357,120 (99.4%) candidates were present for the examination. Only 2,297 (0.6%) were absent. The rate of absenteeism continues to drop, and this is a good sign.
As mentioned above, the format of reporting performance under the competency- based curriculum differs significantly from the old curriculum.
Performance is reported by achievement levels indicated by letter grades A, B, C, D, and E. The achievement level for each subject is arrived at from scores generated from the assessment of competencies at the school level; that is, through Continuous Assessment (CA), and the scores from competencies assessed in the final, End of Cycle examination.
Under the competency-based assessment, there is no ranking of candidates into Divisions as in the previous curriculum. A candidate will qualify for the UCE Certificate if he/she obtains a competency level grade of D in at least one subject sat for.
The overall results show that 350,146 (98.05%) of the candidates who sat qualified for the UCE certificate. This will be indicated on the Transcript and Certificate as Result 1. The candidates who did not fulfil the conditions for the award of the UCE certificate will have Result 2 indicated on their transcripts.
These are candidates who did not sit for some compulsory subjects, or did not sit for a minimum of eight subjects, or who have no Project Work scores.
There has been a very welcome reduction in cases of malpractice. There are 64 cases with a total of 984 candidates suspected, compared to nearly 3,000 suspected last year. The nature of the items in the papers do not lend themselves to malpractice.
However, the cases reported are mostly in the science practical papers, with Physics being most affected. Of the cases, 883 (93.1%) are in the Sciences, and only 65 (6.9%) in the rest of the other subjects. In these Science cases, there is overwhelming evidence that the candidates were given experimental results by teachers merely to copy. The work done by the candidates do not relate to results recorded.
At the Uganda Government Upper Uganda Prisons School, Luzira, 28 candidates were registered. Of the 28 candidates who registered, 27 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, 11 candidates were registered and they all sat for the examination. All of them also qualified for the UCE certificate.
