Belgium Technical Cooperation (BTC) has been supporting tertiary and vocational education in Uganda for a number of years in partnership with the ministry of Education and Sports.
Alongside Irish Aid and the European Union, BTC is assisting the Support to Skilling Uganda strategy (SSU) under the ministry of education and sports.
Recently, Belgian ambassador Hugo Verbist handed over phase one of a newly-refurbished Muni National Teachers College in Arua to the government.
This Tuesday will see the launch of the pilot Skills Development Fund in Fort Portal, which is also supported by BTC. Also to be launched are business plans for the various institutions supported by BTC and other partners.
Jonathan Kamoga interviewed BTC’s THIERRY FOUBERT, the project coordinator, about SSU’s interest in, and strategy for, vocational education in Uganda.
What exactly is BTC’s interest in vocational education?
Vocational education and training constitutes an important and specific niche by providing a direct link with the job market and contributes directly to individual well-being as well as to the economic development of a country.
Through skills training, young people learn a skill or a trade that can help them to find decent work or start up their own business (entrepreneurship). This is very significant for Uganda, based on the fact that majority of the population is under 18 years and the youth might have academic qualifications but inadequate skills and competencies required by the employers.
Regarding the Support to Skilling Uganda strategy (SSU), what do you want the project to have achieved by the time it closes?
The SSU project aims at contributing towards boosting youth employability through the support to quality instruction and learning.
The project will mainly focus on enhancing the quality and relevance of skills provided in order to respond to labour market requirements in line with the Skilling Uganda reform agenda.
Under the SSU project, you are piloting a Skills Development Fund: what is the specific rationale for this SDF?
In a bid to increase resources for BTVET, the Skilling Uganda strategy situates diversification of financing for skills development through the SDF, via pooled funding of public resources available for BTVET in Uganda and contributions from development partners, among others.
International experience shows that private sector involvement in financing, through something like a levy makes a difference. Of course this requires careful discussion and demonstration of trust and commitment before the private sector can be convinced.
It is in this context that SSU is piloting an SDF in the Albertine and Rwenzori, West Nile and Karamoja areas. The aim is to stimulate bottom-up initiatives and partnerships between the BTVET institutions and the private sector actors.
The fund will support a series of joint ventures between training providers and the labour market to test-run bottom-up initiatives that promote provision of demand-driven training and facilitates transition from the world of training institutions to the world of work. This would be through work-based learning, for example increased apprenticeships and industrial training.
What exactly is Belgium’s contribution to the fund?
The SDF is a multi-donor fund, the Belgian government is supporting the Skills Development Fund for Albertine and Ruwenzori with Euros 2,000,000, the European Union Trust Fund (West Nile and Kiryandongo) with 1,330,000€ and the Irish Aid (Karamoja) with 1,190,000€.
You talked about the private sector; how can Uganda’s private sector participate in SDF?
The private sector actors are encouraged to partner with the training providers and come up with proposals as joint ventures to improve the quality, relevance and innovative modalities for skills development.
The private sector is expected to provide the labour market information on the required skills but also to benefit from staff upgrading.
Could you give us a sense of what exactly this SDF can achieve?
We expect that the fund will improve public private partnerships of employers/private sector and the training providers through the joint ventures, this will support the development and implementation of relevant training programs.
We expect that the fund will improve competitiveness and productivity of the formal and informal sectors in the project areas. We believe the fund will promote equity by increasing the number of vulnerable youths, women and girls in skills development. This will be achieved through the deliberate efforts to focus on these marginalized groups.
The fund will provide opportunities for learning and replication of good practices towards the establishment of afuture National Skills Development Fund in collaboration with other partners such as the Skills Development Facility funded by the World Bank and implemented through Private Sector Foundation Uganda.
You are also launching business plans for institutions; what is the strategy behind these business plans?
Five institutions in the Rwenzori and Albertine areas were supported to undertake a self-assessment and eventually develop business plans.
The process of developing business plans was highly-participatory, with partner institutions taking the lead role, facilitated by BTC Uganda and the Ernst and Young, through a series of workshops and capacity building initiatives. Those plans are, therefore, a blueprint on how to implement and make Skilling Uganda a reality.
These business plans provide a road map for partner institutions towards skills development centers and ultimately centers of excellence in areas where they have a competitive advantage.
Vocational training suffers from an image challenge, with young people largely uninterested in it. Are you concerned about this?
The image of vocational training is not only a concern of donors but of the government of Uganda as well. That is why the government put together the Skilling Uganda strategy that expected to transform Business, Technical and Vocational Education and Training (BTVET) in Uganda into a comprehensive system of skills development for employment, enhanced productivity and growth.
The plan seeks to promote BTVET as a viable option to all Ugandans interested in contributing to growth, and not just as an alternative for low-grade achievers.
Are you not anxious that you could be supporting something that might struggle to register impact?
Today’s fragmentation of BTVET remains a challenge as it does in many countries. Global example shows that a “one stop shop” regarding skills development can make a difference as foreseen in Skilling Uganda.
The project is anchored and jointly implemented within ministry of education, which is also responsible for creating an enabling environment.
Normally when you talk of vocational training in Uganda from both the world of training and work, most people see male students. Will the programme interest more girls and young women into vocational training?
Yes, the programme has mainstreamed gender issues at all the three levels of the intervention mentioned above through the following:
At the strategic level, BTC, with other education partners, supported the development of the gender in BTVET policy. This provides clarity and guidelines on how to address gender issues.
The pilot fund has a specific window that supports vulnerable youth, women and girls into skills development and goes beyond the classic gender distribution in technical and vocational trades.
At the institutions level, the partner vocational institutions are being supported to come up with interventions that address issues of women and girls at their level as well as vulnerable youth.
We hope that the program will support in a way that young male refugees in West Nile as well as girls in the western Uganda can find employment on oil plants and the young Karimajong start their own businesses within their local booming economies.
