Female candidates who sat for the Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education Examinations in 2017 performed better than their male counterparts, despite being fewer in number.
Out of the 101,269 candidates who sat for the exams, only 41,932 were female candidates. There was a drop in performance in history, geography and Maths.
Performance in sciences also remains low.
Releasing the results on Wednesday, UNEB Executive Secretary Dan Odongo noted that although the gap between the number of female candidates and male candidates who sat for the exams was still fairly wide, 39% of female candidates obtained 3 principal passes, compared to the male candidates at 31.8%
Female candidates who obtained two principal passes accounted for 66.4 percent, while the male candidates accounted for 57.4 percent.
The female candidates also had a lower failure rate at 0.7% compared to their male counterparts with a failure rate of 1.5%.
In 2017 better performance was registered in Literature, CRE, Physics and Biology compared to 2016.
Economics and entrepreneurship also had better performance at the principal A pass level.
However UNEB Executive Secretary Dan Odongo noted that there was a general decline in performance in the 2017 UACE national exams.
60,941 out of the 101,269 candidates who sat for the exams obtained the minimum two principal level required for university admission.
A total of 1,141 candidates completely failed the exams, compared to 1,363 candidates in 2016.
