MUHAMAD MATOVU
The minister of state for Primary Education Rose Mary Sseninde has proposed the need for government to come up with the policy for the university students preparing to graduate to be assessed by directorate of industrial training.
This, she says, will reduce the number of unemployed graduates in the field because of being half baked.
The minister made the comments on Wednesday while visiting the headquarters of industrial assessment body which is a directorate of industrial training in Kampala.
Sseninde proposed that government should come with a policy to limit institutions teaching technical courses from assessing their students and leave it to the directorate of industrial training.
She stated that government should start thinking of skilling primary and secondary teachers so that they can be able to advocate for vocational skilling in their schools.
She added that the mindset of the parents need to be changed so that they can value vocational studies in order to curb the unemployment problem across the country.
“We have observed that many of our students, who graduate from different universities, sometimes tend to come out as if they are half baked,” she noted.
She said that educationists have started to believe that maybe students are being trained theoretically.
“I think time has come for us as ministry of education to look into, to venture in to having children who graduate from the universities to be assessed by directorate of industrial training (DIT),” she said.
She called upon Ugandans to focus on skilling their children to be come job creators other than job seekers.
“Directorate of Industrial Training, trains and assesses, it trains hands on which is away to go,” she said.
The director of industrial training, Patrick Byakatonda, noted that they assessed all students dealing in industrial work irrespective of their academic qualifications.
“We have to guide the training in the industry, we have to assessed and satisfy those people in the industry,” he said.
He said they shall continue assessing and guiding the training in the industry and also guides the people who employ on the level of competences.
