2025 PLE Results Released

The Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) has officially released the 2025 Primary Leaving Examination (PLE) results, showing steady progress alongside ongoing challenges in the education sector.

A total of 817,883 candidates sat for the exams across 15,388 centres — a clear increase from 797,444 candidates in 2024. Of these, 522,036 were from Universal Primary Education (UPE) schools (11,525 centres), while 295,847 came from private and non-UPE institutions (3,863 centres).

UNEB Executive Director Dan Odongo reported that boys outperformed girls overall and recorded a lower failure rate. He praised the quality of the examination papers, noting that they successfully aligned with the shift to competency-based learning — focusing on how learners apply knowledge and skills rather than memorisation.

However, Odongo highlighted a critical issue: many teachers, particularly in Social Studies and Religious Education, have not fully adapted to this new teaching approach. As a result, candidates performed more weakly in questions requiring practical application of knowledge to real-life community and national contexts. This contributed to lower performance in those subjects compared to the previous year.

Odongo also issued a strong warning about misleading revision materials sold by informal “examination bureaus.” These last-minute resources often confuse learners and undermine proper preparation.

UNEB Chairperson Celestino Obua welcomed the continued rise in candidature and noted that absenteeism remained stable at 1.3% for the second year in a row. While every dropout remains a concern, he was encouraged that more candidates achieved Grade One this year, and a higher number qualified to proceed to secondary and vocational education.

Obua expressed confidence that successful learners will secure places in secondary schools and vocational institutions, supported by the government’s ongoing expansion of access. He confirmed that UNEB will continue annual analysis of exam performance to monitor proficiency under the competency-based curriculum.

He emphasised the urgent need for more teacher training to help educators properly interpret and deliver the new curriculum. UNEB has already provided targeted support to teachers in two low-performing districts and plans to expand these efforts if funding allows.

Overall, the 2025 PLE results reflect modest gains in participation and top-tier performance, but they also underscore the need to close teaching gaps and protect students from unreliable revision resources.