Youth unemployment

I was part of the constituency voters who turned up to welcome H.E. the President when he visited the MP of Mukono North residence at Mbalala on December 11, 2011.

The area MP Ronald Kibuule in his welcome speech stated that the constituency had many upcoming industries yet the youth from the area lacked the minimum education to be considered for the jobs.

The President in his speech acknowledged that Mukono North constituency had all along been a bastion of NRM and needed rewarding. He did not at that time mention the appointment of the MP as the Minister of State for the Youth.

What he stated was that a vocational training school would be built within the constituency as a reward for the unwavering support. People cheered. I cheered because the President was striking at the core route of the youth unemployment problem.

Increasing youth unemployment in both developed and developing countries at times is referred to as “a ticking time bomb.”  It triggered the ‘Arab spring’ and the” occupy wall street movement” in the USA and here in Uganda, the walk-to-work could be attributed to this.

There are several causes of youth unemployment; they may differ among countries but if critically analysed would amount to the same. Through formal education, youth are taught impractical subjects like History, Geography and the like.

Additionally, programme selection at the university is very problematic. Displines are determined /imposed on students based on the results rather than allowing the student to select programmes of their choice and interest. That is why many students are unable to build strong career/professional foundation even though formal education.

There are very few institutions for profession training especially in rural areas. The youth can only be prepared for employment in the job market through vocational training. Vocational training must have specific purpose, mainly to improve skills related to specific technologies and to develop them further in the work place.

However, vocational training as a single intervention is likely to be insufficient to overcome the high youth unemployment because of serious difficulties in integrating youth in the lab to our market especially among early school leavers.

 To counter this and make job training successful by making it relevant to the needs of the economies, other reforms, including lab our market policies for young workers need to encompass training as part of an integrated and targeted package that recognises the array of lab our market barriers that the youth face.

Policy makers must take a systematic and holistic approach to addressing youth employment which includes; unrealistic wage expectations on the part of the youth, inexperienced young workers, and poor access to fundamental education, rapid economic change, which makes the youth redundant.

Understanding these core causes of youth unemployment, including the special impediments to employing the young population, is an essential first step to avoid costly investments in designing specific job training programmes to alleviate youth employment.

Not properly identifying the core causes of youth unemployment, much of the training offered to the young unemployed people is bound to fail and it will not live up to its expectations when subjected to rigorous evaluation of training programmes.

Training programmes not specifically designed to meet the needs of the youth often have not yielded positive results in raising incomes and job offers for these identified workers.

The President has done his job for the constituency. What is remaining is the MP to make a follow up on implementation of the pledge but foremost, the collective efforts by all institutions and concerned policy makers.

There must be renewed interest in public-private partnership projects in order to increase the employment opportunities, especially for the youth.

The Government, NGOs, multinationals and other investors must come forward to collaboratively take initiative for eradicating youth employment.

Small and medium enterprises must be encouraged with special tax breaks and the Government incentives to set up in rural areas. Additionally, the government-assisted micro finance loan packages can also help the youth to set up their businesses on a small level.

Uganda manufacturers association and Uganda Investment Authority should be pro-active and skew their annual achiever awards to companies which have employed many youth.

The minister for youth should equally initiate and lobby for conducive policies for the youth. This should be of primary concern to the government.

Ssengendo Kaweesa  Keefa
National Coordinator
ECOVIC- Uganda
Email: kefasen@yahoo.com