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- Uganda Skills Development Project (USDP)
Uganda’s labour force consists of 15 million individuals with Agriculture accounting for 73% of the labour force employed in 2010. About 95 percent of the 11 million people working in Agriculture are informal workers. Within the services sector, 80 percent of the jobs are in the non-wage/informal sector jobs, mainly in low-productivity retail trade. Other sectors that employ relatively large numbers include the manufacturing sector (500,000 people) with about 60% of these in non-wage manufacturing. Construction accounts for 1.6 percent of the workforce (about 250,000 people). However, over 90 percent of workers are in wage employment sector.
The challenge Uganda faces is to increase the number of jobs in the more productive sectors, shifting people out of Agriculture into services and industry, while at the same time putting in place interventions, which will enhance productivity in Agriculture.
The Business, Technical and Vocational Education and Training (BTVET) sector has the potential of providing the largest number of skilled employees to increase Uganda’s productivity. However, the sector has suffered from weaknesses in five major areas. These include; relevance to economic growth, quality of skills provision, access and equity, organizational effectiveness and financial and internal efficiency. The system does not produce the appropriately skilled workforce that Uganda requires to increase income and employment and to compete internationally. The training institutions do not deliver training commensurate to the required standards and few students access the training .
Development Objective
To enhance the capacity of institutions to deliver high-quality, demand-driven training programs in target sectors. The target sectors are construction, manufacturing and Agriculture.Purpose
The purpose of USDP is to support the design of the initial set of reforms that will set the foundation for transforming skills development in the country. It aims at creating a scalable model for high quality vocational and technical training which is linked to labour market needs for specific sectors.About the Project
Since the early 1990s, Uganda embarked on a series of structural reform policies and investments designed to free up markets, stimulate private investment, and encourage competition. The rate of economic expansion, which averaged around 7.6 percent a year from 2006 -2010, fell to 5.5 percent from 2011-2013. This slump in growth and the high rate of inflation (averaging 23.5 percent in 2012) were largely as a result of the global economic turbulence, higher food and oil prices, together with slippages in fiscal and monetary policy (World Bank, 2013).
Nonetheless, Government’s expectation, in the medium-term scenario, is that the rate of growth will exceed the historical rate of 7 percent, driven predominantly by oil production, along with productivity gains in Agriculture and increased trade with the East African Community (EAC) through greater integration and harmonization (IMF 2013, the World Bank 2013).
Uganda’s labour force consists of 15 million individuals with Agriculture accounting for 73% of the labour force employed in 2010. About 95 percent of the 11 million people working in Agriculture are informal workers. Within the services sector, 80 percent of the jobs are in the non-wage/informal sector jobs, mainly in low-productivity retail trade. Other sectors that employ relatively large numbers include the manufacturing sector (500,000 people) with about 60% of these in non-wage manufacturing. Construction accounts for 1.6 percent of the workforce (about 250,000 people). However, over 90 percent of workers are in wage employment sector.
The challenge Uganda faces is to increase the number of jobs in the more productive sectors, shifting people out of Agriculture into services and industry, while at the same time putting in place interventions, which will enhance productivity in Agriculture.
The Business, Technical and Vocational Education and Training (BTVET) sector has the potential of providing the largest number of skilled employees to increase Uganda’s productivity. However, the sector has suffered from weaknesses in five major areas. These include; relevance to economic growth, quality of skills provision, access and equity, organizational effectiveness and financial and internal efficiency. The system does not produce the appropriately skilled workforce that Uganda requires to increase income and employment and to compete internationally. The training institutions do not deliver training commensurate to the required standards and few students access the training.
Given these enormous challenges, a sector-specific approach to developing skills across a continuum from the informal sector to medium and large formal sector enterprises and targeting both new entrants to the labour force and existing employees, is appropriate. Such an approach will allow the Government to test out strategies and interventions to reform the public institutions and courses targeting particular sectors, involve the private sector in training and delivery and set up the system level mechanisms for responding to labour market needs and ensuring quality. If successful, the approach will be scaled up in the future to meet the demands of the growing economy through the provision of an adequately skilled and adaptable workforce.
This is why the Government of Uganda through Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES) launched a BTVET Strategic Plan 2012/13 to 2021/22 entitled "Skilling Uganda". This plan underscored a paradigm shift in skills development in the country. It emphasized creating employable skills and competencies relevant to the labour market rather than educational certificates as was before.
The Uganda Skills Development Project (USDP) worth USD $100M was initiated by the Government of Uganda through the Ministry of Education and Sports, to implement foundational reforms that would operationalize the BTVET strategic Plan. USDP is a five (5) year project funded by the World Bank; it was approved in April 2015 and became effective in October 2016. USDP targets enabling programs to meet skills needs in key priority sectors of the economy i.e. Agriculture, Construction and Manufacturing, in line with Uganda's National Development Plan (NDPII) as well as Vision 2040.
PROJECT COMPONENTS
This component seeks to support the implementation of critical reforms necessary for the effective functioning of the skills development system as well as supporting the establishment of the a TVET Council, an autonomous body charged with the overall responsibility of strategic oversight and management of the sector.
This Component is constituted by the following sub-components;
u Establishing Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) and developing the foundations the TVET Council . The Project envisioned formally operationalising three SSCs for the Construction, Manufacturing and Construction Sectors. These SSCs were anticipated as the vehicle for the government to develop high quality skills standards with employers to improve productivity and enhance competitiveness of the industry in the country and at the regional level.
u Alignment and strengthening of the TVET assessment system
Due to the fact that standard setting, assessment and certification across TVET is done by multiple institutions, the insufficient participation of employers in the setting of standards and lack of agreed set of standards in the industry, this sub-component was initiated to enable determination of an appropriate mechanism to support the implementation of Competency Based Assessment, in line with occupational standards that would be determined by employers during the project life
u Establishing a Management Information System (MIS) for the TVET
This sub-component was designed to support design, development and establishment of a Management Information System for the TVET sector, so as to ease planning, management, Monitoring and Evaluation of reforms undertaken by the Sector.
u Communication and Marketing for the TVET Sector
One of the major challenges that the TVET Sector in Uganda currently faces is poor public perception; TVET is stigmatized as a preserve for failures. This component is intended to support the development and implementation of a robust Communication, Rebranding and Marketing strategy for TVET in Uganda.
Component 2: Improving Quality and Relevance of Skills Development .
This Component seeks to develop four colleges to eventually become Centres of Excellence (CoES) in Manufacturing, Road Construction, Building Construction and Agriculture. These colleges namely; Uganda Technical College Bushenyi, Uganda Technical College Lira, Uganda Technical College Bushenyi and Bukalasa Agricultural College respectively, will offer high quality Competency-Based Training for artisans (low-level), artisans (medium-level) and technicians (higher-level), with intention to equip them with skills demanded by the industry. These Institutions would be networked with 12 Vocational Training Institutions (VTIs) to provide relevant and high quality training for artisans and crafts persons, in order to increase access to training by the public.
Component 3: Employer-led short-term training and recognition of prior learning . This component is being implemented through a Skills Development Facility (SDF) mechanism that will in future be co-financed by the private sector through a matching grant contribution. This component is supporting training activities that will lead to improved productivity and competitiveness in the formal and informal sectors.
Component 4: Project Management, Monitoring and Evaluation .
Component four is financing operations for the Management of the project, which includes operations of a Project Coordination Unit (PCU), within MoES, herein referred to as PCU1 (that manages the project,) and Implementation Units within the respective CoES, as well as strengthening of the existing PCU under the PSFU, herein referred to as PCU2.
Monitoring and Evaluation under the project including baseline studies, mid and end term tracer studies, employer satisfaction surveys, mid-term management review, and annual performance audits, and, Capacity building for implementing units, monitoring of the project and production of reports with gender-disaggregated data to reflect the proportions of male and female benefiting the project are all being done under this component
