8 in 8: List of top UCE 2019 students in the country

The Uganda National Examinations Board on Friday released the 2019 Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) results.

The ceremony presided over by Education Minister Janet Museveni took place at the Office of the President in Kampala.

Out of the 337,697 candidates who sat for the final exams, 168,639 were male and 169,058 female at 3,531 centres. For the first time in history, more girls registered for last year’s exams than boys.

Mary Okwakol, Uganda National Examination Board (UNEB) chairperson said the exams were conducted smoothly, free from leakage.

“Overall performance in the UCE 2019 examinations was better than that of the previous year. It improved from 87.2 per cent in 2018 to 92.2 per cent,” said Okwakol.

Dan Odongo, the UNEB Executive Secretary said that failure rate in the UCE examinations dropped to 7.8 per cent, from 12.8 per cent in the previous year. Therefore 92.2 of the candidates who sat for the exams can proceed to the next level of education.

Subjects wise, Odongo said that an overall improvement was realised in subjects like Biology, Agriculture, Chemistry and Art. While in the English language, History and commerce have a significant drop.

In Biology only 0.3 per cent of females passed at distinction levels but males were 0.7 per cent. At the credit level, females were 26.7 per cent and males were 36.2 per cent, Pass level females were 67.3 per cent and males were 72.7 per cent.

In Physics, 0.2 per cent of females had distinctions and males were 10 per cent. 9.9 per cent of females passed with credit while males were 18.7 per cent, 40.2 per cent of females had passes and males were 53.5 per cent.

Chemistry, 2.1 per cent of males had the distinction as compared to 0.8 per cent females. 18.8 per cent of males had credits but females were 12.3 per cent. At the pass level, males were 53.5 per cent while females were 40.2 per cent.

Mathematics, 2.3 per cent of females had distinctions and males were 5.5 per cent. 27.6 per cent of females had credits lower than males with a difference of 10 per cent since 37.6 per cent of males had credits. At the pass level, females were 57.8 per cent and males were 63.6 per cent.

In English, the story changed as females lead at all levels, at distinction level females were 0.6 per cent while males were 0.5 per cent. At the credit level, females were 37.8 per cent while males were 34.2 per cent, Pass level 78.4 per cent were females while 76 per cent were males.

However, Odongo noted that although there was an improved performance in sciences, there is still a challenge in overall pass level for science subjects especially Physics and Chemistry where nearly half of the candidates have not achieved a minimum pass 8 level.

Here are the best UCE students who scored aggregate 8 in 8: