Our first cohort of pupils sat the Primary Leaving Examination (PLE) in 2017. We had 46 pupils sit the exam — 18 girls and 28 boys.

The candidates came from six academies located in five districts in eastern Uganda: Bugiri Municipality, Iganga, Jinja, Mayuge, and Tororo. The eastern region which is one of the poorest areas of the country and was the worst performing region of Uganda in the 2017 PLE.

Key statistic

• One-hundred per cent of our pupils passed the exam

Further statistics

• Ninety-three per cent passed in Division One or Two, compared to 56% nationally.
• Over 93% of Bridge pupils passing in Division 1 & 2 compared to 44% of pupils elsewhere in eastern Uganda. Bridge pupils were twice as likely as their peers within their region and achieve top scores.
• Bridge’s pass rate was 13 percentage points higher than the eastern average, and pupils were more than twice as likely to be placed in Division 1 or Division 2.

Girls education

• Girls at Bridge were 15% more likely to achieve Division 1 or 2, compared to girls nationally.
• Girls were almost 2.5 times more likely to achieve Division 1 or Division 2 than their Eastern Ugandan peers.
• Following historical trends, boys outperformed girls on the PLE nationally. 60% of boys were placed in Division 1 or Division 2 while only 52% of girls achieved this status. At Bridge, our boys and girls are performing on par, with over 90% of both groups achieving Division 1 or Division 2.

Length of time

• The more years a pupil had spent at Bridge, the better their PLE performance was

Secondary schools

• Bridge pupils joined top secondary schools including Nabisunsa Girls School, Tororo Girls School and Busoga College Mwiri.