Vocational heads want certified technicians issued work permits

EDUCATION

Vocational institutions have asked the Ministry of Gender, labour and Social Development to consider issuing work permits to technicians whose skills are certified.

This they believe will increase their employability to reduce on the rate of unemployment in the country.

Christopher Semanda, the Director Maganjo Institute of Career Education said the institute is yet to meet with the Ministry of labor and that of local governments to negotiate on how best they can issue work permits to those who have been certified.

"When people get trained, it will be bad for them to unfairly compete with those who have not been trained. That is why we want to focus on the local governments which can benefit from permits," Semanda said.

He added that once done, it will act as an income earner to the local governments and also help to regulate the industry.

Semanda was speaking during the visit of the Skills Development Facility Project team (SDF) to Maganjo institute, to ascertain the performance of TMRAC Ranking and certification project being supported by the World Bank through the SDF  

TMRAC Ranking and certification project is a SDF/PSFU Supported program implemented by Maganjo institute of career education and other partners.

It seeks to promote recognition of prior learning among artisans and independent labor contractors to increase their employability through bringing them together to get assessed, certified and made accessible to their clients.

The Project has also seen the formulation of an APP Code, named JUPA general services that assists clients who need certified labour contractors such as Bricklayers (Masons) Auto-mechanics, Plumbers, Carpenters and Chefs. It also assists skilled and experienced individuals to obtain nationally recognized qualifications.

The on-line platform manages the record system for On-line assessment and a workforce database for workers across a broad spectrum.

According to Semanda, this new intervention will help people across the World to access workers of their choice and can take advantage of the screening protocols to verify the authenticity of people they want to hire.

The App also has a provision where a client can search for the permit of the person whom they want to give a contract.

"The local government enforcement officer can use the same, by putting in the permit number which displays the photograph of the person holding that permit on the screen, "he said

This according to him, will help the local government to enforce the permit issues and also reduce the unfair competition from non-trained and unregulated practitioners.

He said that as part of the project, Makerere University Business School has offered the training in drafting sustaining plans and quality manuals.  

Mary Ann Kajumba, a grant specialist in charge of window four which is overlooking recognition of prior learning at SDF/PSFU explained that, Maganjo Institute of career Education received a grant of 429m to implement the skilling and certifying masons in the four regions of Uganda including western, Eastern, North and Central region.

"They are supposed to certify 700 masons in building and construction .We have given them so far sh172m for the first phase of implementation since October last year and they have managed to train assess and certify 114 masons who have already been certified by the Directorate of Industrial Training (DIT),"she said.

She added that the institute was supposed to develop an App where technicians can be assessed by anybody and develop a database for all those they have certified in different categories and have them assessed by DIT and placed in the database to ease access to their clients.

 In this case a client can just click on the website which takes him to who is available and shows the level of competence and qualification.

According to Kajumba, Uganda's economy is mostly run by the informal sector with most of the prior learners having attained skills without going to schools to attain papers to talk about their competence.

"The essence of prior learning is to have these people re- assessed and retrained so that they can be certified and can have papers which can show their levels of competence.

We believe that when they get these, they will be able to access jobs easily because they will simply present evidence showing their level of competence," she said.

Andy Mwesigye Balikuddembe one of the beneficiaries applauded SDF/ PSFU and World Bank for sponsoring prior learning mostly among the youth.

 "I used to work without any certified skill, but now I can ably deal with my customers because of the professional skills attained in negotiating a contract, organizing my site and how to respect others, Mwesigye stated.