The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The government has been asked to make vocational training more attractive to the young people.
Ingo Badoreck, the former Director of the German Chamber of Commerce in Kenya has said.
Ingo says African economies and Uganda, in particular, require a strong base of people skilled through vocational training to offer the required labour for the economy to grow.
Speaking at the side-lines Kampala Geopolitics Conference 2019 at Makerere, Ingo said in order to address the increasing levels of unemployment, vocational training is a basis for any economy to grow.
According to Ingo, who is also the resident representative of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS), in German, for instance, they have a system where half of the school-going children go for vocational training and the other half go for university education, which he says enables them to ensure balance.
Dr Madina Guloba, a senior research fellow at Economic Policy Research Centre says there is a great need of mind-set change towards the training and interests towards vocational education in Uganda.
She says Ugandans think vocational and technical education and training is for the failures and those without money to enrol for university education.
Dr Guloba, however, observes that at times it is those who have attained degrees looking for jobs from vocational graduates, which implies once Uganda re-focuses its development agenda towards putting equal stance for both vocational and university training.
Youth unemployment according to Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment (ACODE), an independent public policy, research, and advocacy think tank stands at between 64% and 70%, and about 400,000 youths being released annually into the job market to compete for approximately 9,000 available jobs.
It is also estimated that about 30% of the youths who are institutionally qualified in Uganda are unable to find jobs and that youths who remain unemployed or underemployed and do not exploit their full potential, are often associated with high incidences of drug abuse and gambling.
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