UACE 2025: Buganda’s top Arts and Science schools reaffirm the region’s academic dominance

The 2025 Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UACE) results, released on Friday, March 13, 2026 by the First Lady and Minister of Education and Sports, Janet Kataaha Museveni, confirmed Buganda’s place at the centre of Uganda’s A-Level academic conversation. UNEB reported that 166,400 candidates registered for UACE in 2025, up from 141,996 in 2024, while 165,172 actually sat the examinations. Of those who sat, 113,291 candidates (68.6%) qualified for university admission.

For Buganda, those national figures matter because the region continues to carry the heaviest weight in Uganda’s secondary education system. According to the Uganda Education Statistical Abstract 2025, Buganda had the highest number of secondary schools in the country, amounting to 1,768 schools, or 38.7% of all secondary schools recorded on EMIS in 2025. That means any school that rises to the top in Buganda is emerging from the most crowded and competitive school ecosystem in Uganda.

This article is based on the school data you supplied, using the same broad logic described in the ranking notes attributed to New Vision’s analysis: schools are compared using average points per candidate, with the size of the candidate class also shown to help readers judge whether performance was achieved at small scale or across large cohorts. In other words, the ranking is not simply about one exceptional student, but about the average class performance of each school in the 2025 UACE examinations. This makes the tables more useful for judging school-wide academic quality.

In this article, Buganda is understood in the broad central-Uganda education sense that includes districts and cities such as Kampala, Wakiso, Mukono, Mpigi, Mityana, Mubende, Kassanda, Luweero, Nakaseke, Nakasongola, Masaka, Kalungu, Lwengo, Rakai, Kyotera, Sembabule, Lyantonde, Bukomansimbi, Butambala, Gomba, Kiboga, Kyankwanzi, Buikwe and Kayunga, among others in the wider Buganda educational zone. Across this large and densely schooled region, the 2025 UACE results reveal both historic giants holding firm and newer schools aggressively rising.

Top UACE Schools in Arts in the Buganda Region (2025)

Rank	School	Avg Points	Candidates
1	Cornerstone Leadership Academy	18.6	10
2	St. Julian High School Annex4, Gayaza	17.7	20
3	Cornerstone Leadership Academy	17.1	15
4	Gayaza High School	16.6	65
5	Central College Annex, Mityana	16.6	23
6	Seeta High School	16.5	83
7	Seeta High School Mukono	16.3	152
8	St. Joseph’s Secondary School Naggalama	15.9	42
9	Mt. St. Mary’s, Namagunga	15.5	25
10	St. Henry’s College Kitovu	15.3	21
11	Seeta High School “A” Level Campus	15.2	132
12	Uganda Martyrs Secondary School Namugongo	15.1	129
13	Master Cares Christian High School	15.1	17
14	St. Mary’s Secondary School Kitende	15.0	164
15	Gombe Secondary School	14.9	163
16	Brixton Secondary School Wattuba	14.8	12
17	King’s College Budo	14.7	105
18	Makerere College School, Mulawa	14.7	18
19	Midland High School Buntaba	14.7	48
20	Ndejje Secondary School	14.7	75
21	Light Academy Secondary School	14.6	37
22	God’s Way High School Maganjo	14.3	48
23	Madinah Islamic Secondary School Nsangi	14.2	144
24	Seeta High School Green Campus, Mukono	14.2	136
25	Naalya Secondary School Bweyogerere	14.0	91
26	Trinity College Nabbinqo	13.9	68
27	Royal College Namugongo, Mukono Camp	13.8	33
28	St. Mark’s College Namagoma	13.8	221
29	St. Mary’s College Lugazi	13.8	177
30	Kisozi High School	13.7	46

The Buganda Arts table is remarkable for both its elite averages and its depth. The very top is dominated by highly selective schools, with Cornerstone Leadership Academy and St. Julian High School Annex4, Gayaza posting extraordinary averages above 17 points. But the bigger story is what happens across the rest of the table. Schools such as Gayaza High School, Seeta High School, St. Joseph’s SS Naggalama, Mt. St. Mary’s Namagunga, St. Henry’s College Kitovu, Uganda Martyrs SS Namugongo, St. Mary’s SS Kitende and King’s College Budo show that Buganda’s Arts excellence is not narrow; it is distributed across old mission schools, large private schools, girls’ boarding schools and newer high-performing academies.

One of the most important indicators in the Arts ranking is cohort size. It is one thing to score highly with 10 or 20 candidates; it is another to sustain strong averages with over 100 candidates. In that regard, schools such as Seeta High School Mukono (152 candidates), Seeta High School “A” Level Campus (132), Uganda Martyrs SS Namugongo (129), St. Mary’s SS Kitende (164), Gombe SS (163), Madinah Islamic SS Nsangi (144), Seeta High School Green Campus (136), St. Mark’s College Namagoma (221), and St. Mary’s College Lugazi (177) deserve special attention. These are not just top schools; they are large-system performers.

The Arts results also reveal the continuing strength of girls’ schools in Buganda. Gayaza High School and Mt. St. Mary’s Namagunga remain among the region’s most academically stable institutions, proving again that girls’ schools remain central to high-level A-Level performance. At the same time, Buganda’s private school growth story is evident in schools like Seeta, Cornerstone, Light Academy, Master Cares Christian High School and Brixton Secondary School Wattuba, which now compete directly with long-established traditional giants.

Top UACE Schools in Science in the Buganda Region (2025)

Rank	School	Avg Points	Candidates
1	St. Julian High School Annex4, Gayaza	17.2	47
2	Mt. St. Mary’s, Namagunga	16.7	101
3	God’s Way High School Maganjo	16.5	52
4	Cornerstone Leadership Academy	15.9	14
5	Gayaza High School	15.7	99
6	Act High School Kakuto	15.7	12
7	St. Mary’s Secondary School Kitende	15.6	334
8	Seeta High School Mukono	15.5	156
9	Seeta High School	15.5	158
10	King’s College Budo	15.5	300
11	Budinse Memorial School	15.5	30
12	Mpigi Mixed Secondary School	15.3	24
13	Uganda Martyrs Secondary School Namugongo	15.2	369
14	St. Mary’s College Kisubi	14.8	149
15	Mehta Secondary School	14.7	30
16	Shepherd High School Katovu	14.3	35
17	Cornerstone Leadership Academy	14.3	10
18	Umar B. Islamic High School	14.3	17
19	St. Mary’s College Lugazi	14.2	318
20	St. Henry’s College Kitovu	14.1	78
21	Midland High School Buntaba	14.0	49
22	Namilyango College	14.0	142
23	Ndejje Secondary School	14.0	147
24	Light Academy Secondary School	13.8	52
25	St. Joseph’s Secondary School Naggalama	13.8	182
26	Savio Secondary School Ttula	13.7	13
27	Kisubi Seminary	13.6	10
28	St. Henry’s College Mbalwa	13.3	43
29	St. Joseph Of Nazareth High School	13.2	76
30	St. Joseph’s Seminary, Nyenga	13.1	16

If the Arts table showed depth, the Science table shows Buganda’s astonishing scale at the top end. St. Julian High School Annex4, Gayaza leads the region with 17.2 average points, followed by Mt. St. Mary’s Namagunga on 16.7 and God’s Way High School Maganjo on 16.5. But the Science ranking becomes even more impressive when one looks at candidate volume. St. Mary’s SS Kitende posted 15.6 average points with 334 candidates. King’s College Budo recorded 15.5 with 300 candidates. Uganda Martyrs SS Namugongo managed 15.2 with 369 candidates, while St. Mary’s College Lugazi had 14.2 with 318 candidates. Those are massive A-Level science cohorts by Ugandan standards, and maintaining such strong averages with so many candidates is a powerful signal of institutional capacity.

The Science table also shows that Buganda’s excellence is not confined to one type of school. There are top-performing girls’ schools, boys’ schools, mixed private schools, seminaries and Islamic schools. Namilyango College, St. Mary’s College Kisubi, Kisubi Seminary, St. Joseph’s Seminary Nyenga, Umar B. Islamic High School, and Light Academy all feature in the top 30, reflecting the region’s diversity of school traditions. What unites them is not their ownership model, but their apparent ability to organize strong science teaching, student support and examination preparation.

A comparison of the two categories brings out several deeper insights. St. Julian High School Annex4, Gayaza is elite in both Arts and Sciences, but even stronger in Science. Mt. St. Mary’s Namagunga appears in the top ten Arts schools and rises to second in Science, which is notable because it challenges the old assumption that girls’ schools mainly dominate the humanities. God’s Way High School Maganjo is much stronger in Science than in Arts, suggesting a particularly focused STEM orientation. St. Mary’s SS Kitende, Seeta High School, Seeta High School Mukono, Uganda Martyrs SS Namugongo, St. Joseph’s SS Naggalama, King’s College Budo, Ndejje SS, Light Academy and St. Henry’s College Kitovu all perform strongly across both categories, making them among the region’s most balanced all-round institutions.

These results also reinforce what many education stakeholders already suspect: Buganda’s top schools benefit from a combination of strong leadership, stable staffing, better infrastructure, richer parental support, stronger competition for admission, and wider exposure to academic and digital resources. With 1,768 secondary schools, Buganda has a larger platform from which excellence can emerge, but it also has sharper competition. That competition helps explain why even getting into the region’s top 30 requires such high averages.

At the same time, league tables should be read with caution. A school with 10 candidates and a very high average may still be outstanding, but its performance is different in nature from a school that sustains nearly the same average across 150, 200 or 300 candidates. For that reason, the Buganda tables are especially useful when read not just by rank, but by the combination of average points and candidate numbers. Schools such as Kitende, Namugongo, Budo, Lugazi, Seeta, Seeta Mukono, Namilyango, Ndejje, St. Mark’s College Namagoma and Madinah Islamic SS Nsangi stand out because they combine scale with strong performance.

In national perspective, Buganda’s continued dominance is not surprising, but it remains significant. New Vision’s running coverage of the results described Buganda and Ankole as emerging as the best-performing regions in both sciences and arts, while UNEB’s official release highlighted improvement in overall performance amid a large rise in candidature. In practical terms, Buganda’s results suggest that the region still sets the pace for A-Level competition in Uganda.

For KAWA readers, the larger lesson is clear. Buganda’s 2025 UACE performance is not just a story of famous names; it is a story of systemic educational density, institutional ambition and intense academic competition. The Arts table proves the region’s breadth in humanities and general A-Level scholarship. The Science table proves that Buganda is equally formidable in STEM. Together, the two categories make one point unmistakably: Buganda remains Uganda’s deepest reservoir of A-Level school performance.