News
Saturday, June 21, 2014
Investment Authority introduces programme to arm youth with skil
KAMPALA, Uganda - In an attempt to provide practical solutions to the growing numbers of unemployed youth in Uganda, a total of 100 youth have been trained in various business disciplines necessary for the job market through the Youth Apprenticeship Programme (YAP).
The programme, an initiation by Uganda Investment Authority (UIA), in collaboration with Vantage Communication, a private communications company, has seen the 100 graduates from various disciplines get skills in basic book keeping, business planning and formalization, social media, customer service, among others.
Lawrence Byensi the Director Investment Facilitation UIA, said the programme seeks to address the issues of where and how to get working experiences without a job, which is often a requisite for the job market.
While passing out the trainees at Makerere University’s Faculty of Food Science and Technology, Byensi warned the youth against violating business ethics of the organisations where they shall be placed for further training.
He said “the YAP is a pilot programme targeting job seeking graduates and it intends to address the question of where and how without a job a frequent requirement in the job market’’.
According to him, this initiative comes after having reviewed the shortfalls of ongoing approaches to help young people who are looking for a place in life and thus leading to the development of an innovative Youth Apprenticeship program for graduates and students volunteers to obtain the much needed job experience by offering services to help micro, small and medium businesses on a pilot trial to get the necessary job experiences.
“We are concerned with the trend in youth unemployment which is why UIA has taken a lead a role and keen interest in this initiative under UIA’s SMEs and youth programme” Byensi said.
The programme is expected in the future to be rolled out countrywide and will initially recruit at least 2,000 youth and 1,500 SMEs and cluster the apprentices in service units that can be called upon for various services, depending on their skills and competencies.
Ms Grace Achire, the chief executive officer Vantage Communications Group, advised the youth to work on their attitude.
“The business community can concur with me that young people have an attitude problem. They join the employment sector today and in one year, they want to be driving and running the whole Organisation.”
Recent research by the World Bank shows that youth unemployment stands at more than 62% and each year, more than 400,000 young people are released to the job market. At least 100 businesses have been signed up to take on the trained youth.
The Youth Apprenticeship Programme seeks to mitigate youth unemployment problems through combating training the youth and assigning them to business to give them the necessary experience needed by the job markets. This is hoped to offer them with the hands-on skills in case they decide to start their own business.
The programme also seeks to help formalize business records keeping for SMEs who lack capacity to improve their performance.
Today’s number ONE challenge for the increasing number of job seekers and the young generation in getting employment is reported to be the lack of experience.
Free training in basic business administration tools and skills, records keeping for the apprentices shall be provided. After which the apprentices shall be deployed to help micro, small businesses that don’t have formal process for keeping business records. Upon satisfactory delivery of the pilot trials the program can be upgraded for a small fee.
By Winnie Mandela, Saturday, June 21st, 2014