Strategies by Makerere University finalists’ students in preparation for the unemployment world

Abstract

A high level of youth unemployment is one of the critical socio-economic problems facing Uganda (MoGLSD 2012). While the labor force grows, with an increasing proportion of youth, employment growth is inadequate to absorb labor market entrants. As a result, finalist students are especially affected by unemployment. Moreover, finalist students are more likely to be employed in jobs of low quality, working long hours for low wages, engaged in dangerous work or receive only short term and/or informal employment arrangements (Haftendorn and Salzano 2004). Despite the efforts put in, high rates of unemployment continue to occur in the country, young people with formal education had low probabilities of being employed and their unemployment rate stood at 18% compared to the 13.3% who had completed some stage of education. Finalist students have tried to come up with strategies together with the various measures that have been taken by the government of Uganda to alleviate the problem of youth unemployment, 3 million Ugandan shillings was provided to the directorate of industrial training to train youth in skills that will make them more employable (UG budget FY 2009/10).Therefore, there has not been enough extensive research made in the area of study so, this has prompted the researcher to carry out research on the strategies by the finalist students to in preparation of the unemployment world, a case study of Makerere university students.