New Oil and Gas Skills Council inaugurated

Different players from the oil and gas sector have been selected to sit on the Oil and Gas Council to skill the public.
At the inauguration ceremony held in Kampala recently, Mr Alex Kakooza, permanent secretary ministry of Education and Sports, said government is taking action to secure employment of Ugandans in the oil and gas sector.
“The ministry of Education and Sports will continue to provide support to the sector skills council because aligning training to sectors’ needs should start right away,” he said.
Government in the same spirit inaugurated 11out of 13 members to the Oil and Gas Skills Council from different fields in the sector.

Responsibility
The members will be tasked to equip the public with demand driven training rather than supply driven which has, in some cases, been a cause of the high unemployment levels.

Members
The Council, includes Dr George Owor, a representative of universities offering oil and gas training, Mr Rossini Silveira from the Society of Petroleum Engineers Uganda Limited who was also voted chairman of the Council and Mr Ewen Fraser will represent international oil and gas companies.
Mr Justine Odong is a representative from the public institution offering oil and gas training while Mr Alex Assimwe and Ms Grace Bambeera represent Ministry of Gender and Total E&P, respectively.
The Council also comprises a representative from the Petroleum Authority of Uganda, National Oil Company, private institutions offering oil and gas training plus the ministry of education.
Mr Kakooza also revealed that Cabinet approved the technical, vocational education and training (TVET) policy in January which will streamline skills training in the country.
However, the process is ongoing to establish a TVET Council which will coordinate all skills training in the country.

First Council
Government in 2015 instituted the first sector skills council which included the oil and gas skills council, agriculture sector skills council, construction, manufacturing, and tourism in addition to the hospital sector skills council.
Until the TVET Council is formulated, sector skills councils will report to ministry of education.
This is the second oil and gas council since the skills council was formulated in 2015.
According to Ms Loy Muhwezi, head of TVET policy reform secretariat, the first oil and gas council was operationalised under the Albertine Region Sustainable Development Project (ARSDP) under which progress was made.
“They played a great role in steering both Uganda Petroleum Institute Kigumba (UPIK) and Uganda Technical College (UTC) Kichwamba with their twinning institution during the curricula development,” Ms Muhwezi said.
“We hope to work closely again with the second council until the TVET council is established since we still have certain activities within the Albertine Region Sustainable Development Project (ARSDP) work plan for implementation by the council.”
The second council comes after the April approval by the National Council for Higher Education of the oil and gas curriculum which will be followed by UPIK when training starts in August.