Where are the jobs in Uganda?
Jun 25, 2007
SIR — The job situation in Uganda has become so alarming that many graduates today have become desperate. This is a situation the Government might regret one day. Education is no longer the problem because so many People have pursued degrees and diplomas in various professions. but where are the j
SIR — The job situation in Uganda has become so alarming that many graduates today have become desperate. This is a situation the Government might regret one day. Education is no longer the problem because so many People have pursued degrees and diplomas in various professions. but where are the jobs?
I recently happened to have a chat with Democratic Party president General Ssebaana Kizito during a tea break after a public function. I considered myself privileged to be seated next to one of Uganda’s bigwigs and planned to ask him to assist me get a job for a close colleague who has just graduated from Makerere University. However, before I brought up the subject, Ssebaana asked me if we had jobs in my organisation! Apparently, he also had a relative who has just graduated with a law degree. “she has even completed Law Development Centre but is on the streets,†Ssebaana said. This was a shock of a lifetime, because I realised that perhaps even knowing someone ‘big’ is no longer enough for one to get a job in Uganda today. I did not dare ask him for connections because he had already voiced a similar problem and it was now obvious he could not help. From our discussion, I got to know that when he was an undergraduate, employers would flock Makerere University to book prospective employees long before graduation! He said by the time he graduated, he had three jobs waiting for him and the only problem was to decide which one to take. Such a statement made me wish I had been born many years earlier. Ssebaana blamed the job scarcity in Uganda partly on the increasing population, corruption in government institutions, and the government’s policy of selling off her parastatals. The discussion went on and on until we promised to call each other to continue from where we had stopped. Certainly for a politician of his stature not to have started our conversation with trying to win me into his party, but asking for a job, can only depict how grave the job situation is. He informed me that is was a gross waste for parents to pay the ever-increasing school fees from nursery school to university, only for their children to return home empty-handed after graduation, begging for survival as adults. He observed that most of the moneyed fellows in town are actually half-educated. They did not waste their money in education but decided to take short cuts in business. What a reflection of a devastated state of mind! Many Ugandans must be facing a similar dilemma. Long ago in Uganda, students competed so tightly in school hoping for good grades, joining Makerere and getting good jobs immediately after! All this is a dream today because the few available employers no longer look at the degree ‘papers’, but whom they know. In some extremes, cases of sex-for-jobs have reduced Ugandan girls to the level of mere sex objects, while the few strong boy graduates have become conmen and thieves! What a pity!
Deo T. Kabwende
Kampala
I recently happened to have a chat with Democratic Party president General Ssebaana Kizito during a tea break after a public function. I considered myself privileged to be seated next to one of Uganda’s bigwigs and planned to ask him to assist me get a job for a close colleague who has just graduated from Makerere University. However, before I brought up the subject, Ssebaana asked me if we had jobs in my organisation! Apparently, he also had a relative who has just graduated with a law degree. “she has even completed Law Development Centre but is on the streets,†Ssebaana said. This was a shock of a lifetime, because I realised that perhaps even knowing someone ‘big’ is no longer enough for one to get a job in Uganda today. I did not dare ask him for connections because he had already voiced a similar problem and it was now obvious he could not help. From our discussion, I got to know that when he was an undergraduate, employers would flock Makerere University to book prospective employees long before graduation! He said by the time he graduated, he had three jobs waiting for him and the only problem was to decide which one to take. Such a statement made me wish I had been born many years earlier. Ssebaana blamed the job scarcity in Uganda partly on the increasing population, corruption in government institutions, and the government’s policy of selling off her parastatals. The discussion went on and on until we promised to call each other to continue from where we had stopped. Certainly for a politician of his stature not to have started our conversation with trying to win me into his party, but asking for a job, can only depict how grave the job situation is. He informed me that is was a gross waste for parents to pay the ever-increasing school fees from nursery school to university, only for their children to return home empty-handed after graduation, begging for survival as adults. He observed that most of the moneyed fellows in town are actually half-educated. They did not waste their money in education but decided to take short cuts in business. What a reflection of a devastated state of mind! Many Ugandans must be facing a similar dilemma. Long ago in Uganda, students competed so tightly in school hoping for good grades, joining Makerere and getting good jobs immediately after! All this is a dream today because the few available employers no longer look at the degree ‘papers’, but whom they know. In some extremes, cases of sex-for-jobs have reduced Ugandan girls to the level of mere sex objects, while the few strong boy graduates have become conmen and thieves! What a pity!
Deo T. Kabwende
Kampala