Speaking after the ceremony at the UETCL offices at Clement Hill, Valentine Katabira stressed that UETCL’s partnership with NVTI is quite strategic, considering that electrical engineering is their largest department and the most critical in the company’s role in transmitting and distributing electricity countrywide.
“What we are doing today is setting up a collaboration between us and NVTI such that they bring in their instructors to train with us, and gain practical skills which they can teach the students. This would be beneficial to us. This is because we are the consumers of the products that come from NVTI,” Katabira said.
He also added that this collaboration would also give some officials at UETCL chance to refresh their knowledge on the aspects that are not covered by them, like motor rewinding.
The need for more artisans, according to Katabira, is something UETCL has looked at keenly as they do all the technical work in the field. He added that the partnership fits in government’s agenda of Buy Uganda Build Uganda.
NVTI hopes the exchange will go in a long way in helping the institution understand what the private sector needs, mostly in the area of transmission of electricity.
“As an institution, we are charged with training the human resource needed by the industry but many times the industries complain that there’s a mismatch. What we are training is not what they require; so, this kind of partnership will help us collaborate and understand exactly what the industry needs,” Francis Omoo, the acting executive director of NVTI, said.