The debate over the credibility of Primary Leaving Examination (PLE) results can no longer be sustained on rhetoric. UNEB’s own statistics over the last three years show a clear, measurable pattern, a sharp contraction of top grades nationally, with the heaviest impact falling on long-established private schools that have historically anchored Uganda’s best PLE performance.
In the 2023 PLE cycle, UNEB reported 4,000 first grades nationally out of about 749,000 candidates. A year later, in 2024, the number of first grades fell further to 3,800 despite an increase in candidature to roughly 782,000 pupils. In the most recent 2025 results, first grades declined again to around 3,500 out of 817,883 candidates, according to figures released by UNEB.
That is a net loss of roughly 500 first grades in three years, even as enrolment rose by nearly 70,000 pupils.
This decline has not been evenly distributed. Data released alongside results shows that many of the schools losing the highest number of first grades are long-established private institutions in Kampala, Wakiso, Mukono, and other urban centres, schools that previously accounted for a disproportionate share of Uganda’s top performers.
These are schools like Kampala Parents School that pay teachers between Shs2 million and Shs3 million, invest billions in infrastructure, maintain low pupil–teacher ratios, and provide stable academic calendars. Yet UNEB’s grading outcomes increasingly compress them into second and lower divisions, wiping out their competitive edge on paper.
Over the same three-year period, UNEB has reported improved performance from hard-to-reach and rural schools, including those in Karamoja and other underserved regions. While national equity in education is a legitimate goal, UNEB has not published any statistical linkage between learning inputs and outputs to justify how schools with documented teacher shortages, limited instructional materials, and weak supervision structures are outperforming highly resourced institutions in raw examination scores.
The contradiction becomes starker when performance stability is examined. Schools associated with senior government officials, including those linked to State Minister for Higher Education John Chrysostom Muyingo, have largely remained within competitive performance brackets over the same period. UNEB has not explained why the decline appears concentrated among certain private schools while others remain insulated.
Equally damaging to UNEB’s credibility is its unresolved record on examination integrity. In previous cycles, the board acknowledged cases of 34 missing Science scripts for learners of Bamure Primary School, Koboko District, resulting in candidates being awarded X grades. To date, no comprehensive public report on who was held accountable. That silence sits uneasily alongside UNEB’s insistence that its grading is beyond reproach.
The numbers matter because they shape behaviour. When first grades shrink year after year, not because of falling enrollment or curriculum change but through unexplained grading compression, private investors read the signal clearly. Returns on quality investment are no longer predictable.
If this trajectory continues, private schools already carrying the financial burden will be forced to cut costs, freeze teacher pay or exit the sector entirely. Government does not have the fiscal space to absorb that collapse.
UNEB now faces a simple obligation: publish disaggregated data showing how grading thresholds have shifted, explain why top-performing schools are disproportionately affected and fully account for past examination failures under its watch.
Without that, the issue is no longer perception. The statistics themselves point to a system drifting away from credible, input-based assessment and towards a results regime that risks dismantling trust in primary education altogether.
