Ugandan youths should jump craving for non-useful university degrees

Sometime back, I wrote in this publication that we need, as a society, to steer clear of going through school as a pursuit of prestige. My argument was that in our time, we should put an end to the craving for tags of academic qualifications that are not strategically helpful. There is no need to study what will only return sentimental value to a student and other stakeholders, for the realities of life demand of any human being more than emotional fulfillment. 

When one is done with school, they will need to feed, pay medical bills, incur transport costs and generally meet real life challenges that require material resources to be addressed. After school therefore, you need to make money. What you study should position you for this very critical reality. 

When I wrote the above, a number of commentators called me out. They asked me whether I did not purse a university degree myself, and wondered whether I did not even go beyond bagging only one degree from university. The voices were so many, and I did not address myself to them at the time. I will now attempt to push my argument further.

Approaching my mid-forties now, I am among the oldest Ugandans. Our country is a land of very young people. What applied to me in terms of opportunities therefore, will not apply to my children, and even less so to their children. If things were static, one could argue that since their grandfather became an agricultural officer in the post-colonial civil service in 1963 after six years of formal schooling, a pupil of primary six of today still stands chance of formal employment in the civil service. On the contrary though, even many university graduates will never get a chance to work in the civil service, even if they desired one, leave alone be able to find a satisfactory job to match their aspirations, anywhere else. And I am not just trying to be pessimist. 

What our university system does today is to create inflated aspirations. It manufactures entitlement to white-collar privilege in an environment where white-collar opportunities are already oversubscribed. The outcome is that we have many university graduates stranded with their qualifications, waiting and hoping to find fitting jobs. We also have a progressively burdened ageing population of parents that continue to take care of their graduate children after university. 

I believe that it is as uncomfortable for the said children, as it is for their parents. Wealthy families may have a way around this challenge by absorbing their children into family-ran corporations, but the proportion of the population with such abilities is small. 

For ordinary families, who are the majority, the answers may be elsewhere and this is what I would suggest. You do not have to pursue a university degree. It is costly. It demands a long period of study. You are likely to never find the job it promises, even when you score high grades. And more importantly, you may stand a better chance of finding employment after pursuing technical vocational education and training. 

Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) is a key driver of socioeconomic transformation and industrial development of any country, and that is what Uganda needs today. As a country, we need more people with vocational training than we need university graduates of any level of qualification. You need to simply look at the national ambition for infrastructural transformation, the housing deficit in the country, our national development agenda and the relevant plans, the day-to-day needs for services of builders, mechanics, carpenters and other similar trades to come to terms with the fact that this is where the work for you may be.

I am aware of course, of the mindset of our society. I know the stigma associated with pursuing an education path that is associated with the less fortunate who are unable to continue with their education up to university.

 However, I strongly recommend a mindset change so that our youths should embrace vocational training with pride. For the young people, there is no pride to be found in hanging a portrait of your graduation photograph when you cannot feed yourself. You do not go to school to locate emotional satisfaction. You attend school to be able to face life ahead, and life ahead will require you to earn a living. You do not have to pass through the gates of one of the universities mushrooming around, for you to make it. You need a skill that is in demand, that people are willing to pay for. Do not study for prestige because the future will be unkind to you if you make that mistake.  

Raymond is a Chartered Risk Analyst and risk management consultant
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