By. Damba Rogers
East African
universities are being asked to focus more on having more competence training
of students so as to fit in the current job market.
Speaking at
the opening of the 3rd annual East African university quality
assurance network conference held today in Entebbe, the permanent secretary
ministry of education Uganda, Alex Kakooza attributes the half baked products
from universities in the region to the poor training module that focuses more
on theory than practical’s which in the end the graduates can not service the
industry well.
With the
growing gap in the skills and what the job market wants, they are now
introducing competence training at university to introduce best skills required
by the job market.
Uganda has
over 200 higher institutions of learning that pass out students with
certificates, diplomas, degrees, masters degrees and PDHs but these students
are having less direct and immediate impacts to the current job market
problems.
The
conference seeks to draw better ways on how universities in the region can
better produce the required workers with better skills.
The
executive director National Council of Higher Education, Dr. Pamela
Kalyagira reveals that the council has established new ways on how
programmes are delivered at the universities in a bid to see that products meet
the needed standards by the job market.
According
to the director we interviewed on the sidelines of the ongoing regional
university meeting in Entebbe, stakeholders among them being the industry are
invited to have their input in the formulation of the new curriculum to have what
they need to be taught by universities included to have well-baked products for
the market.
She
adds that this requires all stakeholders to come together as one to come up
with the best teaching guides to have a better out at the end.
The
new changes also focus at seeing that universities in the region stop having
huge numbers of students in lecturer rooms for effective teaching, assessment
and other needed plans to teach students.
In
Uganda’s public and private universities, a lecturer can teach over 400 students
in a single lesson which impacts on the quality of the students.
Meanwhile,
the chairperson, inter-university council of East Africa, Alexander
Lyambambaje calls for the establishment of research-based incubators
to come up with better innovations that will facilitate development in the
regional member states.
END