Tanzania sees boys outperform girls in PSLE as their performance gap widens

DAR ES SALAAM: AS the number of pupils passing the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) continues to rise, a performance gap between boys and girls remains evident, with boys recording a higher pass rate than girls.

Statistics from the National Examinations Council of Tanzania (NECTA) show that the overall pass rate increased to 85.22 per cent in 2026, up from 81.80 per cent in 2025, representing an improvement of 3.42 percentage points.

However, boys continued to outperform girls, recording a pass rate of 86.18 per cent compared with 84.43 per cent for girls, highlighting the persistent difference in academic performance between the two groups.

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Announcing the results on November 3, 2026, NECTA Executive Secretary, Professor Said Mohamed, said 970,876 out of 1,139,273 candidates whose results were released passed the examination after attaining Grades A, B and C.

He said boys accounted for 443,254 of the candidates who passed, while girls numbered 527,622. This means that although more girls passed the examination in absolute numbers, their overall pass rate remained lower than that of boys.

According to Professor Mohamed, a similar pattern was recorded in 2025, when boys achieved a pass rate of 82.51 per cent, compared with 81.21 per cent for girls.