Unemployment: Speed up higher education reforms

Last week, Makerere University graduated 12,913 students into the job market. This is less than 2 per cent of the 700,000 young people who join the labour market every after 12 months. However, only about 238,000 are absorbed.

The rest [462,000] are either jobless or simply floating in the labour market, hoping to find employment. Some jobless graduates are now chasing dreams on boda bodas. For others, fruitless years of job-hunting and humiliation forced them to sell family land in search for greener pastures in the Arabia Gulf states desert. Some are in Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates trying to secure their future.

A quick breakdown of the 12,913 graduates from Makerere University, gives a clear insight into the extent of one of the insidious problems facing the country. 131 PhDs, 1,587 Masters, 156 Postgraduate Diplomas (67 female, 89 male), 11,016 Undergraduate Degrees (5,990 female, 5,026 male), and 24 Undergraduate Diplomas (15 female, 9 male) graduated from Makerere University. Some of these graduates have the papers but often struggle to fit into the job market due to inadequate skills and knowledge.

High and persistent youth unemployment in a sign of our inability to walk the talk. Long years of lip service and laissez-faire approaches to university education reforms are a hinderenceto our children. Our country has one of the youngest populations in the world, with about 44 per centof the population under 14 years.

This is unsustainable. The perils of churning out job seekers as opposed to job creators are well-known to our leaders at all levels. Those in government as well as the Opposition. The private sector and the development partners. We must table reforms, redirecting the education system to vocational skills training to ensure job creation.

Our view is that we are not helpless. With the right antidote, we believe something can be done to check the current employment crisis in the country. The National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC), the National Counsel for Higher Education (NCHE), Uganda Federation of Employers (UFE), Parliament and Education ministry should have a round table discussion on the kind of reforms we need.

To speed up reforms, we propose a holistic approach to the glitches in our education sector, starting with redesigning higher education courses. Universities as well as colleges should as a matter of urgency introduce compulsory entrepreneurship training and digital innovation at both undergraduate and graduate levels.

This will equip graduates with the required skills and knowledge. We propose that these reforms be adequately funded including compulsory innovation hubs in all universities across the country.