Institutional benchmarking & partnership formation towards career development and advocacy for TVET
Uganda has Africa’s youngest population. The youth population has a high unemployment rate and stands at a level between 64% and 70%, (https://wwwacodeu.org ) as cited by Gateway research centre 2020.
The dropout rates at secondary schools in Uganda are relatively high compared to other neighbouring countries. The students who drop out need some form of skill that can help them to earn a living when they are no longer in school and supported by their parents/guardians.
Technical Vocational Education and training is one of the feasible ways of availing the needed employable skills to these students. The challenge is that there are many misconceptions about opting for TVET which include the claim that TVET is for less intelligent learners.
The 2020 USEP baseline survey discovered that the average percentage of students who applied for TVET courses in 2019 was only 2%. Additionally, 34.8% of Uganda’s 34.6 million population are adolescents (UNFPA, 2019).
There is a need to increase awareness among secondary school students about the potential of TVET in empowering the youth with the much-desired employable skills. The new Lower secondary school curriculum is a competency-based curriculum that recommends that some TVET-based subjects should be part of every secondary school curriculum in every secondary school.
The New lower secondary school curriculum has been further enhanced by the possibility of certification of the Vocational subjects offered at ordinary level schools (Commerce, Fine Art, Music, Agriculture, Home Economics, Wood Work, Metal Work, Technical Drawing, Entrepreneurship Education, Computer Studies) are evaluated and certified by the Directorate of Industrial Training, through this activity student will leave O’ level with a certificate.
During this activity, teachers, students, parents and school managers exhibited awareness of the potential behind TVET by choosing TVET as a possible option for study after secondary school. The activity implored schools to organize TVET inspirational talks, TVET institution visits and TVET career days etc as well as start mini TVET in-school training courses in response to the New lower secondary school curriculum recommendation.