The 2025 Uganda Certificate of Exams whose results were released on Friday have indicated that boys outshone their female counterparts in sciences.
The results released by the First Lady and Minister for Education and Sports, Janet Museveni indicated that in Geography, Mathematics, Agriculture, Physics, Chemistry and Biology, the proportion of males in the exceptional and outstanding levels was higher for boys than for girls.
This was the same case with History and Political Education.
However, the girls demonstrated higher achievement levels in English Language and Christian Religious Education.
The results show that while 3.8% of boys got grade A in Geography, the girls in the same grade were 3.1% while in Mathematics, 1.9% of boys got grade A and 1.1% of girls.
In Physics, 1.0% of boys passed in grade A while only 0.6% of girls passed in the same grade and in Chemistry, 0.9% for boys and O.8% for girls in grade A.
Among inmates at the Luzira Upper Prison School, 39 candidates sat for the exams and all of them passed, while at Mbarara Main Prison Inmates’ Secondary School, 12 all the candidates that sat for the exams passed.
In the special needs category 695 candidates, representing 98.2% passed and qualified for UCE certificates, while 9 (1.8%) candidates did not qualify.
UNEB also reported that there were few cases of exam malpractices during the 2025 UCE exams, with only 63 cases reported.
“The nature of the items in the question papers do not lend themselves easily to malpractice. However, the cases reported are mostly in Mathematics and the practical papers in Physics, Chemistry and Biology. In these cases, there is overwhelming evidence that the candidates were given experimental results by teachers merely to copy into their tables,” UNEB Executive Director, Dan Odongo said.
“In the CBA setting, candidates use the scenario given in the examination paper to design and carry out an investigation using the apparatus given. Where the candidates have been helped, the design done by the candidates do not relate to results recorded.”