For a young graduate, the walk from the lecture room to the workplace can feel like the final step towards economic independence. But for many, it is where another test begins, one that is rarely written on an examination paper: can they do the job?
A degree, diploma or certificate may open the door to an interview. But it does not necessarily mean the person entering the workplace can operate a machine, diagnose a fault, serve a customer, interpret production data or deliver a service to the required standard.
That gap is increasingly becoming a business problem, not just an education problem.
Uganda’s labour market shows the scale of the challenge.
According to the 2025 Labour Market Survey by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, Uganda’s national unemployment rate among people aged 15 years and above who are in the labour force stands at 12.2 percent. In comparison, the unemployment rate among young people aged 15-24 years in the labour force is higher, at 17.9 percent.
Youth unemployment was higher among females at 21 percent, compared to 15.2 percent among males. The survey also found that 42.6 percent of young people aged 15 to 24, equivalent to about 4 million people, were not in employment, education or training (NEET).
But unemployment is only one side of the problem. On the other side are employers who need people who can actually perform.
Research presented during a dialogue on work-based learning points to an uncomfortable contradiction: people can spend years acquiring qualifications and still require substantial workplace training before they become productive.
For businesses, that can mean additional recruitment costs, supervision, lower productivity, mistakes and time spent bringing new employees up to speed. For young people, it can mean remaining outside the labour market despite possessing certificates that suggest they are qualified.
This disconnect between being qualified and being able to perform is putting work-based learning at the centre of Uganda’s skills debate.
The missing classroom is the workplace
Dr Joseph Muvawala, the executive director of the National Planning Authority, argues that Uganda must stop treating the classroom as the only legitimate source of competence.
‘Over 70 percent of our competent workers are not coming from a formal setting. We should accept it as the biggest delivery window for skills in this country,’ Dr Muvawala said.
His argument is reflected in ordinary economic life. A customer rarely asks a mechanic which university awarded their qualification before handing over a vehicle. What matters is whether the mechanic can identify the fault and repair the car.
Dr Muvawala says his own career shows how workplace exposure can turn theoretical knowledge into usable expertise. He recalled joining the Works Ministry in 1996 as a messenger and later working alongside a transport economist who taught him through practical assignments.
He was sent to roads to count vehicles, identify vehicle types and study traffic movements. What initially appeared to be routine counting gradually introduced him to concepts such as road demand, axle loads and traffic management.
‘I have never gone to any classroom to become a transport economist,’ he said.
For businesses, the lesson is simple: competence is often built by repeatedly applying knowledge to real problems under the guidance of experienced workers.
But in Uganda, much of this learning remains informal, inconsistent or poorly regulated.
Dr Muvawala warned that internships can easily become another missed opportunity if trainees are reduced to running errands instead of being given defined learning tasks.
‘Do not send people for internship without setting a framework of what should happen,’ he said, arguing that institutions should have clear workloads, mentors, assessors and expected competencies for trainees.
The National Apprenticeship Programme is designed around structured employment-based learning and work readiness, combining workplace and off-the-job learning and ending in assessment and certification.
The challenge is turning such programmes from initiatives on paper into a system businesses can use.
A fragmented system has a cost
Christine Arach Alum, a research fellow at the Economic Policy Research Centre, says Uganda does not necessarily lack institutions or initiatives. The bigger problem is that many of them operate without enough coordination.
‘Work-based learning is happening, but the ecosystem is fragmented. So we need stronger coordination,’ Ms Arach Alum said.
She argues that institutions such as the TVET Council and the National Employment Council could play a stronger coordinating role by bringing together government, training institutions and employers.
This matters because a company cannot train when it is unclear what a trainee is expected to learn, how progress should be measured or who is responsible for assessing the outcome.
Ms Arach Alum says structured agreements between training institutions and businesses could help secure placement opportunities, while standardised workbooks and curricula could reduce the supervisory burden on companies.
A large manufacturer may have a human resources department, supervisors and equipment that can accommodate trainees.
A small restaurant, workshop or retail business may have none of these. Taking on a trainee can, therefore, mean taking an experienced worker away from revenue-generating work to provide supervision.
Unless the system recognises that cost, businesses may understandably prefer an experienced employee to an apprentice who still needs supervision.
The result is a cycle that is difficult to break: Employers demand experience, young people cannot get experience without employers, and businesses remain reluctant to bear the cost of providing it.
Skills and budget
Ramathan Ggoobi, the Permanent Secretary at the Finance Ministry, says the issue has moved beyond employability to whether public spending is producing measurable economic returns.
Research he cited from industrial parks found that two-thirds of production workers surveyed were skilled, while 23 percent were unskilled and 11 percent semi-skilled.
But the more revealing finding was that 50 percent of surveyed firms reported that even workers considered skilled could not perform tasks at the required level.
That distinction is important for businesses.
‘The problem of Uganda is that we have the industry, but the people are not skilled. We found that two thirds of the production workers employed by the surveyed firms were skilled workers,’ Mr Ggoobi said.
‘When asked whether these firms faced problems where staff could not implement tasks due to insufficient proficiency, 50 percent of the surveyed firms answered in the affirmative. They said even those who were skilled could not do the work they needed to be skilled for.’
Uganda’s skills challenge is not simply about producing more graduates. It is about producing workers whose capabilities match actual production needs.
Mr Ggoobi says this must also change how the government designs and funds interventions.
‘The government will not fund interventions which don’t create jobs,’ he said, adding that programmes will be measured by the number and quality of jobs they create.
Mr Ggoobi also argues that employers should have a greater say in training curricula because businesses understand where demand is heading.
‘Why don’t you ask the people who are doing the work in the industry, in the services? They should inform the programme,’ he said.
That could make training more responsive to sectors where technology, production methods and customer expectations are changing faster than classroom curricula.
The real test is whether someone can do the work.