In the first quarter of 2026, two significant events will define Uganda’s national discourse: first, citizens will head to polls to choose the country’s leaders for the next five years. Second, the national examinations body will release results for learners who sat their assessments last year.
This blog focusses on the latter. During the 2025 examinations period, growing reports emerged of students missing to sit for the exams, a concerning trend that was most pronounced at the Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) level, commonly known as Senior Four.
It is not clear what could be the overriding cause for this but if not addressed, it could turn out to be a heavy cost on students themselves, parents, and the economy in general.
Cases reported in the media included students from several schools such as Cream Field Vocational Secondary School (15) and St. Francisca Girls Secondary School (6), who either did not turn up or found out on the day of sitting that they had not been registered for the same.
While it is possible for these students to sit exams in the following years, experience has shown that majority give up school altogether. If not checked, it is likely to exacerbate the general problem of school dropouts at secondary level currently hovering at 30%, according to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics 2021 report. These concerns grounded in the statistics that emerge year after year. In 2020, 2,804 registered candidates simply vanished from the UCE examination roster.
The numbers grew to 3,764 in 2022 and dropped slightly to 2,774 in 2023, according to media reports. These figures represent a massive waste as thousands of young people who spent four years in school, paid fees, and only to disappear at the critical moment.
Missing final examinations has implications. It not only worsens school dropout rates, but it also denies the country a future critical mass of educated work force.
Several reasons account for school dropouts in Uganda: poverty and the cost of education, with parents forced to choose between school fees, scholastic materials, and putting food on the table.
The other concern remains early marriage and pregnancy among young girls. Uganda faces high rates of child marriage and teenage pregnancy, with statistics indicating 12% of Ugandan women give birth before the age of 18. When girls face this outcome, institutional and societal stigma, coupled with new care responsibilities make returning to formal schooling impossible. Additionally, inadequate sanitation facilities and the lack of provision for sanitary towels in schools compound the attendance challenges for adolescent girls.
Child labour is another factor. According to the Uganda Labour Force Survey (2020/21), 6.2 million (39.5 per cent) of the children engage in child labour. The inevitable result when these children miss their final exams is that most simply give up.
A call to action
Personalised digital tracking. The government should invest in digital tracking of all enrolled students to enable follow up studies on students that miss exams. Parents should find a way to check the registration status of their students on the UNEB registers. Placement of serious sanctions and other punitive measures on school administrators and schools that mishandle registration processes for students.
Students’ grade from S.3 for Continuous Assessment (CA) assignments already captured should be retained so that it counts when they repeat S.4 instead of going back two years, as it counts for 20% of the total grade.
The high rate of educational leakage in Uganda is a multifaceted challenge, rooted deeply in socio-economic inequality and exacerbated by structural barriers within the examination system. The dream of universal education remains elusive if the system continues to create impossible hurdles for its most vulnerable learners.
Recognising school dropouts as a structural failure and implementing targeted, multi-level mitigations can help Uganda mend the holes in its education pipeline and ensure that certification represents not just academic performance, but resilience and equitable opportunity.
