Uganda Development Bank(UDB) has launched the second edition of its apprenticeship graduate program.
The program seeks to provide hands-on skills development and job opportunities to nascent professionals in Uganda in a bid to create a pool for the bank's future talent needs.
“At UDB, we recognize that job creation is central to the national socio-economic development process and core to the country's transformation. Graduate Apprenticeship Program(GAP) is our response to this very pertinent aspect of this country," said Joshua Allan Mwesiga, the Director Strategy and Corporate Affairs at UDB.
He explained that the Graduate Apprenticeship Program is one of the bank's responses to developing its human capital and aims at creating sustainable, decent and meaningful jobs for budding professionals, and this is in alignment with the government's priority interventions stipulated in vision 2040 and NDPI .
"Given that there is no specialized institution for development finance training in the country, the bank sought to contribute to development of these skills and competencies in the country by identifying high achieving young individuals with high entrepreneurial and managerial promise, and by skilling them appropriately. At the end of their training, the apprentices will have acquired the relevant competencies required for various roles; those that will have successfully completed the program, demonstrated the right attitude, conduct and aptitude, will be absorbed into the Bank's service," Mwesiga noted.
Under the program, the bank is calling for applications by graduates in specific fields of study and the finalists will be identified following a structured and competitive selection.
These areas of study include engineering with a bias in mechanical, software, mechatronic, irrigation and agro-processing engineering as well as data management with a bias in Data Science, Analysis and Architecture, Mathematics, Computer Science and Physics as well as statistics and quantitative economics.
Others include human resource management, organization behaviour, environmental science and sustainable development.
UDB says that Ugandan citizens who will have graduated with a bachelor’s degree in the mentione academic fields from reputable recognized university with a Cumulative Grade Point Average(CGPA) of 4.0 and above as well as being 30 years of age and below are eligible.