Mukono reaps from mushrooming industries

Jul 03, 2014

Leaders in Mukono district have appealed to the youth to take up training in vocational and technical skills that will offer them automatic employment in the mushrooming factories and businesses in the area.

By Eddie Ssejjoba                   

Leaders in Mukono district have appealed to the youth to take up training in vocational and technical skills that will offer them automatic employment in the mushrooming factories and businesses in the area.

The leaders say Mukono, also strategically located along the Kampala-Jinja highway and near an Industrial Park in Namanve had already attracted over 30 upcoming big and medium factories that are projected to give thousands of jobs to the youth.

The district council speaker,James Kunobwa, said that the district had welcomed with open hands the setting up of a technical and vocational institute at Namataba industrial area that will train many youth to acquire jobs.

Kunobwa made the comments recently while meeting officials from the ministry of education and sports who toured the construction site for Namataba Technical Institute constructed with aid from the government worth shs6.2billion.

The institute that is slated to open in December will offer seven courses but three have been selected for the start when it opens in January next year. They include building and concrete practice, welding and metal fabrication and motor vehicle mechanics.

The units built include a computer lab, administration block, classrooms, library, a dormitory for girls, kitchen, four houses for teaching staff, two quarters for nonteaching staff, two bore holes and a water tank reservoir.   

 “We know that most of the students who will train here will create their own jobs, but those who want will find it easy to get them from the many factories that are coming up in our area,” Kunobwa said.

He emphasized that parents should encourage their children to offer science subjects in Secondary saying it will be a requirement for entrants to have studied Sciences.

In future, Kunobwa said, the district requested the institute to offer other market demanded courses like petroleum, electric installation, tailoring and plumbing.

The district is also willing to offer more land to the ministry if they could secure funds to expand the institute saying creating jobs for the youth was one of the district priorities.

“We receive this institute with open hands because we shall have got skilled manpower to work in the factories here, we shall offer more land for expansion,” he said.

The Permanent Secretary ministry of education and sports, Dr. Jane Nassali said the government was prioritizing the Skilling Uganda program that will give skills to many young people who need employment.

She pledged that the students from this institute will be of high quality and will have the necessary skills to compete well in the job market.

Nassali said government was aiming at creating a middle income class which can be achieved through having more factories and value addition, which she said cannot be achieved unless train more people to acquire skills.

“Skills enable more people to easily get jobs or create their own,” she explained. The construction works are undertaken by HL Investments.                    

 

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