A total of 832,654 candidates from 14,691 centres (schools) registered for PLE in 2022 compared to 749,761 in 2020.
Of this number, 583,768 (70.1%) from 11,306 centres were Universal Primary Education (UPE) beneficiaries, and 248,982 (29.9%) of the candidates were Non UPE. The proportion of candidates benefitting from the Universal Education programme has increased by 1.7 percent.
Table 1 below gives details of candidature and centres for the last five years.
Table 1: PLE Registration Figures for the last five years
| Year | UPE | Non UPE | Total | No. of Centres |
| 2022 | 583,672 | 248,982 | 832,654 | 14,691 |
| 2020 | 513,085 | 236,677 | 749,761 | 14,300 |
| 2019 | 473,893 | 221,912 | 695,804 | 13,475 |
| 2018 | 476,130 | 195,796 | 671,923 | 13,072 |
| 2017 | 466,235 | 179,955 | 646,190 | 12,751 |
The above table indicates that candidature increased by 82,893 (11.1%) over the previous year. This is higher than the 7.75% recorded in the previous examination in 2020. The average rate of increase before 2020 has been about 2.5% to 3% annually.
In 2022, analysis by gender shows that 400,100 (48.1%) boys were registered compared to 432,554 (51.9%) girls, indicating that more girls than boys completed the Primary Education cycle. This has been the trend in the last six years.
The Board registered 2,436 learners with Special Needs of various categories, including the blind, the deaf, the physically handicapped and the dyslexics, compared to 1,599 in 2020. This is an increase of 52.3%, the largest rate of increase ever. Of these, 1,153 (47.3%) are females and 1,283 (52.7%) are males.
A total of 1,609 of the candidates needed specialized assistance such as provision of braille, sign language interpreters, transcribers and physical support (amanuensis). The provision of this specialized support presents a big constraint on the Board’s budget.
Table 2 below gives the details of candidates who registered for the examination, those who sat and the absentees for the last five years.
Table 2: PLE Figures for candidates who sat and absentees
| Year | Total registered | Total sat | Absentees | % of Absentees |
| 2022 | 832,654 | 811,810 | 20,844 | 2.5 |
| 2020 | 749,942 | 736,942 | 12,819 | 1.7 |
| 2019 | 695,804 | 683,302 | 12,502 | 1.8 |
| 2018 | 671,923 | 659,633 | 12,293 | 1.8 |
| 2017 | 646,190 | 631,282 | 14,907 | 2.3 |
The percentage of absentee candidates had been declining steadily, but has this time, increased by 0.8%.
UNEB has put in place a variety of measures to ensure that the process of registration is secure and efficient, including digital verification and authentication of candidate details. With the online registration system, students easily apply for their PLE exams with greater convenience and accuracy.