ICT, business graduates among the most unemployed, survey finds
Principal Investigator Makerere University Prof Dr Annabella Habinka disseminates the research findings in Kampala.
What you need to know:
- The study tracked the educational journey of students who enrolled in Primary One in 2007 and followed them until graduation. It was found that only 6 percent of the cohort managed to reach Senior Six, with the remaining 94 percent dropping out. Dr Habinka questioned how many of the few who attend university actually secure employment after graduation.
In the 2023/2024 financial year, Makerere Research Innovation Fund (MakRIF) received a Shs139 million grant from the government to launch a project aimed at addressing the country's unemployment problem.
According to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (Ubos), the youth unemployment rate for individuals aged 15-24 stood at 4.5 percent in 2023, a slight decrease from 4.6 percent in 2022. However, the graduate unemployment rate was significantly higher at 15.2 percent. This indicates that while overall youth unemployment is relatively low, university graduates face considerable challenges in securing employment, suggesting a mismatch between educational outcomes and labor market demands.
The project, titled Tackling Youth Unemployment: Aligning University Training to Industry Skills Demand through University-Industry Collaboration, aims to bridge this gap by improving collaboration between universities and industry stakeholders.
The initiative is led by Makerere University, Makerere University Business School (MUBS), the National Planning Authority (NPA), the National Council for Higher Education (NCHE), and the National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC), among other institutions.
Key project team members include Makerere University Associate Professor Dr Annabella Habinka (Principal Investigator), Ms Barbara Kayondo (Co-Principal Investigator and Lecturer at MUBS), Dr. Hamis Mugendawala (Researcher at NPA), Dr. Godfrey Onyait (Researcher at NCHE), and Moses Muhame (Project Coordinator at NCDC), among others.
Tackling graduate unemployment
Dr Habinka explained that the study quantified the scale of the unemployment issue, examining the role of education and the relevance of industry in equipping graduates with the skills needed to fill the employment gap.
The study tracked the educational journey of students who enrolled in Primary One in 2007 and followed them until graduation. It was found that only 6 percent of the cohort managed to reach Senior Six, with the remaining 94 percent dropping out. Dr Habinka questioned how many of the few who attend university actually secure employment after graduation.
“The dropouts may have gone to Business, Technical and Vocational Education and Training (BTVET) institutions or elsewhere; however, our big issue is how many of the six percent that go to university actually get jobs?” Dr Habinka asked during the dissemination of the research findings in Kampala on Thursday.
She added: “We have received the numbers, gotten lots of feedback and from the study, we have been able to see what our key core model is, and one of the findings that we picked up is that the industry partnership with universities is extremely very important.”
“Previously, universities sought industry collaboration. Now, we propose that industries take the lead in identifying and realigning university curricula to meet industry needs and reduce unemployment.”
Focus on ICT and business graduates
In this study, Habinka says they had a specific focus on mainly business and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) because they are our areas of competence and most popular courses with the highest numbers across the entire country.
“We focused on business (92 respondents) and ICT (212 respondents) because these are the most desired skills. Makerere University, MUBS and all other universities have these graduates; however, they are the most unemployed in the country. This is because of career guidance after parents sent it to them as third, fourth or fifth choice after the marks didn’t come out well. It is possible to stop training some of these courses over the next ten years and we lose nothing,” Dr Habinka said.
Recommendations
The project recommends the establishment of formal communication channels between universities and industry, including web portals, forums, and liaison offices which should be located within universities, ensure continuous and structured dialogue between academic institutions and industry stakeholders, and create industry-academia liaison positions.
Also, universities and industries should establish dedicated liaison positions such as industry relations officers who are responsible for managing collaborations, guiding curriculum development, and identifying funding opportunities.
Thirdly, the project calls for the Introduction of internship and apprenticeship programmes, and the developing of policy frameworks where students can gain real-world experience while contributing to solving industry problems.
On her part, Dr Habinka recommends a systematic and comprehensive way of career guidance from grassroot (Nursery) level, and urges parents to desist from the mantra that because they are doctors or engineers, their child must be one.
She adds that the industry gap should be narrowed by giving the industry an opportunity to give academia a lead, especially on what their gaps are, and fund them so that they come up with what they are able to do.
This model, Dr Habinka reckons, will save our students from ‘guessing problems’ while out there and instead seek those that are driven by industry. “Our aim is to disseminate part of our findings from the community to come up with a multi-disciplinary solution which we can propose to policy and industry.”
She notes that holders of Masters Degrees are many compared to skills yet Uganda is not even a First Class country. “China and the United States have less than 33 percent degree holders, but they are leading us, meaning there is something we are lacking. What are they doing differently that we need to learn from? What are our most needed skills in the next 20 to 30 years? We should be at a point where we get our students booked by the labour market during the second semester of their second year,” she further explained.
Ms Kayondo said the project proposes a technology-enabled model that will bridge the communication gap between industry and academia.
“Kyambogo is graduating this week and Makerere University will be graduating in January; there are so many (graduates), but they are not fed into the market. The question is, ‘are we producing graduates that are tailored for the market?”
“We are simply saying, how can these two communicate? How can the industry reach out to the academia to communicate and the reverse such that we produce people that are skilled? There is a course where we got statistics which show that even in the next ten years, we don’t need graduates from that course,” Ms Kayondo explained.
Dr Mugendawala said most universities are surrounded by the poorest communities and slums. “Makerere and Kyambogo Universities, for example, have a significant disconnect with their communities which live with many problems they can’t solve; so, there is a need to open up communication channels,” he says.
He added that every year, one million young people of working age flood the labour market, including 50,000 graduates, yet the country can only have about 300,000 every year whose characteristics are at the level of “construct and repair.”
“We are having people who do not fit in the structure of the economy, and where someone with two degrees accepts to ride a motorcycle (boda boda). Did it require two degrees for them to ride a motorcycle?” he asked.
Methodology
At least 358 respondents in Kampala, Jinja, Mbale, Wakiso, and Mityana were subjected to surveys and interviews during the research which started in February and ends this month.
The respondents included students from Makerere University (98), MUBS (206), who included 129 male and 175 female; lecturers, researchers, Heads of Departments, Deans, Project Managers, Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) or Managing Directors, Human Resource Managers, District Labour Officers, District Commercial Officers and District ICT Officers.
Others were drawn from the NCHE, NPA, agricultural farms, hotels, factories, Ministries of ICT; Gender, Labour and Social Development; and Local Government.
