Oxfam Uganda together with other youth Nongovernmental organizations have appealed to government to adjust the education curriculum to include vocational, life skills and ICT skills as a strategy to promote youth voices and address youth unemployment.
This was during a Youth-led exhibition held at Hotel Africana under theme: ‘Empowering Youth, Unleashing Potential’ during which youth engaged various stakeholders from Government, Private sector, Development partners and Civil Society.
The youth showcased their ICT, Agri-business and youth voice intervention projects supported by Oxfam and its partners, through which they have been empowered to show their underlying potential.
Oxfam country Director, Peter Kamalingin observed that youth unemployment poses economic and social challenges to Uganda as it is one of the contributors of high poverty levels across the country.
According to Uganda National Bureau of Statistics, Uganda has 75 percent of its youth either unemployed or under employed.
“The problem of unemployment is greatly linked to lack of skill,” remarked the Oxfam Director. Training institutions continue to produce graduates whose skills do not match what the market wants; this mismatch makes it harder to tackle youth unemployment.”
The participants at the conference
“Oxfam believes that the issues youth are faced with will be addressed only if there is a comprehensive shift in the education curriculum to include vocational, life skills and skilling as a vital component of increasing opportunities for youth employability by tailoring them to the labor market demands.”
Kamalingin added that in today’s social political dynamics, the integral power of the youth as a tangible resource for the evolution of different societies cannot be underscored.”
“The challenge has been on how the perceived whims of youth-hood can be engaged and trusted in key decision making and development processes.”
He promised that Oxfam will continue to model initiative to generate evidence and best practice that inform its advocacy for qualitative change in the vocational skills, educational curriculum and agricultural reforms.