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The career expo is designed to empower students with the right knowledge and skills to start and sustain profitable careers. During the expo, students will be taken through topics such as jobs of the future and taking the right path, enterprise development, finding your place in the crowd, and building a strong career foundation and how to work your way to the top.
The National Social Security Fund (NSSF) and Monitor Publications Limited (MPL) have teamed for a major career empowerment drive targeting university students.
The NSSF-Monitor Career Expo, launched Tuesday at Makerere University Business School (MUBS), is expected to benefit more than 10,000 students in 11 universities across the country.
The career expo is designed to empower students with the right knowledge and skills to start and sustain profitable careers.
Speaking at the opening of the expo, Richard Byarugaba, NSSF managing director, said that, through the initiative, students will have an opportunity to explore different career options, gain practical knowledge on how to sustain those careers and how to save in their professional lives.
The expo runs until April 12 covering MUBS, Makerere University, Kyambogo University, Kampala International University, Nkumba University, and Ndejje University.
Other varsities are Mutesa I University, Uganda Martyrs Nkozi, Mbarara University of Science and Technology, Islamic University in Uganda, and Gulu University.
During the expo, students will be taken through topics such as jobs of the future and taking the right path, enterprise development, finding your place in the crowd, and building a strong career foundation and how to work your way to the top.
Other topics for the students are premised on the ideals of building a personal brand, how to prepare for a job interview, as well as internship opportunities and job placements.
The careers expo come in at a time Uganda, like many states across the world, is grappling with high unemployment rate, especially among the youth.
A recent study, Lost opportunity? Gaps in youth policy and programming in Uganda, published by ActionAid, put youth unemployment at 62%, although the African Development Bank says it could be as high as 83%.
This means youth unemployment in Uganda is the highest in Africa. The country has the world’s largest percentage of young people under 30 – 78% – according to the to the 2012 State of Uganda population report by the UN Population Fund. Worldwide, there are about 1.2 billion 15- to 24-year-olds. About 200 million are in Africa.
For all the burden, universities in the country churn out more than 15,000 graduates into the labour market annually. The majority of these join a labour market short of opportunities, leading many to try their hands in entrepreneurship and various other areas, worse of them crime.
As a result of high youth unemployment, crime rate, which is often blamed on the youth, is soaring in the country. As well as crime is gambling, where many graduates turn to for a living.
However, some experts believe the problem might not be in lack of jobs alone, but also in lack of career guidance for the youth, which lead many to study courses they are not sure will help them once they are out of college.
It is in this regard that the NSSF-Monitor Career Expo comes in handy to try and pave the right path for students to make their choices well before they graduate.
Monitor to offer platform in newspaper
Tony Glencross, MPL managing director, said that they will continue to mobilise students and promote the initiative on their platforms, including profiling the guest speakers in order to reach more students especially those whose universities are not beneficiaries this year.
The topics will be delivered by a stellar line up of guest speakers that include seasoned entrepreneurs, human resource consultants as well as professionals from reputable organisations.
Students will also have an opportunity to register for NSSF as they prepare to enter the job market, as well as benefit from the KCCA Employment Services Bureau where students have an opportunity to further develop their entrepreneurial and employment skills basing on knowledge acquired during the expo.
In the past, the national savings scheme has reached out to more than 40,000 university students since it started the initiative in 2012.
Byarugaba said that the expo is part of the Fund’s corporate social investment agenda focusing on the Youth.
“The youth, especially university students, form a significant section of potential NSSF membership and that’s why we organise such empowerment initiatives to help them make informed career decisions, join a reputable pension scheme to start saving for retirement as they prepare for life after university and finally life during retirement,