The Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) has revealed that male pupils have outperformed their female counterparts in the recently announced 2024 Primary Leaving Exams (PLE). As per UNEB’s official data, there were more girls than boys.
Boys represented 47.5% (378,709) of the total candidates, while girls made up 52.5% (418,750). UNEB noted that this trend has been consistent over the past few years, with girls consistently outnumbering boys in the final exams.
Nevertheless, boys excelled in Division One. The girls, however, surpassed boys in Divisions Two, Three, and Four, a result attributed to their larger candidate numbers. Additionally, girls performed better in English, while boys showed superior performance in Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies, which has been a recurring trend in previous years. English was also identified as the least successfully tackled subject.
In Division One, there were 45,203 boys and 39,098 girls. Moreover, girls had a higher count of ungraded candidates, totaling 36,141, in contrast to the boys’ 28,110.
In a comparison to 2023, there was a slight reduction in Division One numbers in the 2024 results. In 2023, there were 86,582 candidates in Grade One, whereas 2024 saw a total of 84,301.
Grade Two had 397,589 candidates, with 165,284 passing in Grade Three, while Grade Four included 75,556 candidates. A total of 64,251 candidates will need to repeat Primary Seven due to being ungraded.
UNEB’s Executive Director, Daniel Odong, mentioned that despite a decrease in Distinctions this year, there was an overall improved pass rate (91.8%) compared to the 2023 PLE Exams (88.0%).
