The Executive Director of the Uganda National Examination Board (UNEB), Dan N. Odongo, has said that a total of 88,269 candidates, representing 10.4% of the total number of 749,254 candidates who sat for the Primary Living Examination (PLE) in 2023, are not eligible for senior one, as these candidates failed to reach the minimum level of performance required for senior admission.

Odongo made these remarks on January 25, 2024, while speaking at the official release of the 2023 PLE results by Janet Museveni, the Minister of Education at Nakasero Kampala.

According to Odongo, a higher proportion of the candidates passed in Division 3 and above, so their overall performance is comparable to that of 2022. Division U (ungraded) is awarded to candidates who have failed to reach the minimum level of performance, which can be awarded at least a Division 4.

“It should be noted that the number of candidates in Division U is quite high; with a total of 88,269 (10.4%), they are not eligible for admission to the senior one class,” Odongo said.

He added that the most affected districts are Kibuku, Dokolo, Kween, and Namisindwa, among others, which registered the highest levels of ungraded candidates. He noted that it is necessary to find out the causes and address them so that they do not add to the statistics of school dropouts.

UNEB registered a total of 749,254 candidates from 15,859 centres (schools) for PLE 2023; of these, 501,602 (66.9%) were Universal Primary Education (UPE) beneficiaries, and 247,652 (33.1%) were from private schools.