Dr Aliker tips graduates on job creation
Dr Martin Aliker
KAMPALA- Veteran businessman and Victoria University Chancellor Martin Jerome Aliker, a dental expert and community leader, has urged graduates to be job creators and not job seekers.
Dr Martin Aliker, who served as board chairman of Monitor Publications Limited between 2000 and 2011, was on Friday speaking at the third Victoria University graduation ceremony in Kampala where 52 students graduated in various courses. Dr Aliker said many graduates have become disappointed after failing to get jobs in big firms.
“As you enter into the world, get ready to create your own jobs… Very few companies will employ fresh students. You also know very well that there are many youths in our population today (who are looking for jobs like you),” Mr Aliker said.
Picking from the founding chief executive officer of Cipla Quality Chemical Industries Limited, Mr Emmanuel Katongole’s opening speech, Dr Aliker advised the students to be creative and cautioned them against despising jobs. He also asked them to get absorbed in the industries available for connections.
“I graduated 60 years ago and only two speeches have so far moved me. The speech of Mr Katongole is actually the second,” he said.
In his speech, Mr Katongole said it does not matter where you come from and how poor or rich you are for you to begin your own company or business.
“I sold some of the goats I had saved from a hyena and got money for school fees. The money I got from the goats is what I used to study but thereafter, I began my own company despite the fact that I had feared to start. It is now one of Africa’s biggest companies,” Mr Katongole said.
Unemployment
According to figures from Uganda Bureau of Statistics 2016/17 report, 78 per cent of Uganda’s population are youth yet only 20 per cent of them are employed in formal jobs.
Other statistics from labour department show that for every one job in the formal sector, there are more than 50 people struggling for it. This has forced government to start the Youth Livelihood Programme (YLP) under Ministry of Gender. YLP seeks to help the jobless youth create jobs.
Mr Rajiv Ruparelia, the director of Victoria University, which is owned by city businessman Sudhir Ruparelia, said the university was engaging government and other stakeholders to see that students are wholesomely equipped with the required skills before joining the job market.
“We want our students to be marketable in the job market. We want them to create their jobs rather than being job seekers,” Mr Ruparelia Jr said, adding: “We have approached the oil and gas sector such that our students can get the experience of what is happening in the sector through internships and trainings.”
