Experts to benchmark graduate scheme

Kampala.

Movers of the proposed National Graduate Service Scheme head abroad to benchmark best practices from other governments and stakeholders in the struggle to build technical and civil competence in the country.

Last year, Parliament granted leave to Bunya East MP Waira Kiwalabye Majegere, to introduce the National Graduate Service Bill, 2016 as private Member’s Bill, which if passed into law will integrate social services within the education process.

Under the newly proposed scheme, a young graduate will be deployed for one year and provided with a good level of support when starting career and development opportunity.

Addressing journalists in Kampala last week, Mr Majegere revealed that a five member team consisting of MPs and experts will travel to Ghana and Zambia this month to meet various stakeholders with a view of gathering data that will be used as evidence for acquiring a certificate of financial implication from the ministry of finance.

The National Service Secretariat, a Ghanaian government agency, formulates policies and structures. In Ghana, all graduates from tertiary institutions must complete a one-year national service.

“We have completed consultation with the local stakeholders and we have also received invitations from the two countries. All this will help us develop a justification for the bill before presenting it on the floor of Parliament for the second reading,” he said.

Experts say that the proposed legislation seeks to support government to regulate a way in which people who have completed university studies undergo internship and prepare them to work.

“With the proposed legislation, young graduates will be prepared, interact with the working environment but also provide labour to government projects while learning. And with this arrangement, government can enter a public private partnership with private companies and institutions to take on the graduates to undergo a process of skilling, ideological orientation and mindset change,” Ms Elone Natumanya, the coordinator of the Uganda Parliamentary Forum on Youth Affairs, said.

She was optimistic that people’s perception towards work will change and also build their capacity to make informed choices whether they look for jobs and create their enterprises.

Ms Natumanya described the proposed law as a springboard for over legislations and policies which are all geared towards fighting unemployment among the youth.

Mr Mpaka Mwine Rwamirama, the Youth MP for Western region, said young-people cannot find placement in the white-collar job market and neither are they able to create economic opportunities for themselves in the informal sector because the education system does not adequately equip them. “The National Graduate Service Scheme is important for our youth because it will help them build their personal assets, including character, connectivity, confidence and competence. We know too well that employability starts by building the personal attributes of young people for work and adulthood,” Mr Mpaka said.

Under the scheme, graduates will be entitled to a stipend determined by the Finance ministry. Where a person completes education outside Uganda, they shall be liable to undertake the national service upon return to Uganda to gain eligibility for whatever form of employment.

For graduates employed in the public or public-private sectors, the concerned entity shall pay the stipend allowance while those in the private sector shall be paid by the Secretariat.

Employment

Entities like ministries, departments and private-sector partnerships under the scheme will be required to employ 90 per cent Ugandan workforce. Supporters of the Bill say it will borrow lessons from countries like Ghana, Nigeria and India where National Service Schemes are in place.