Victoria University Vice Chancellor Prof. Lawrence Muganga, an academic machine with enormous digital innovations revealed at the University a few years back, a colleague briefed him about some of the challenges in Uganda. He says among all that touched his heart is the problem of unemployment amongst the youths, surprisingly most of whom are degree holders, quite unbelievable but true.
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After being briefed about the above, Muganga as a senior researcher started digging deeper into this problem wondering; what could be its ignition, why has it not been solved, and what needs to be done to kick it out of Uganda. Now, when you ask a question you expect an answer…right? Muganga got an answer for the above.
The Professor discovered that unemployment among the literate is boosted by a couple of factors but the major one is the poor education formula used by education institutions that only focuses on seeing students acquiring As & Bs in classes and at the end of their academic journey award them with first-class degrees but without any iota of skills.
“Surely with this digital world who needs your papers, companies are now looking for competence, what can you do for them not how you got a first-class degree from University XYZ, trust me that’s nothing, am telling Ugandans to wake up and look for Universities that teach skills and competence, not first-class papers,” says Prof.Muganga.
So, to solve the above-mentioned problem, Prof.Muganga came up with something called the ‘Competence Based Education Formula (CBE)’ which he believes will solve the youth unemployment in the country and of course start with graduates from Victoria University. So if you don’t want to graduate and sit back home with your ’empty’ papers, better switch to Victoria University…you will thank me later.
”With this new education formula, students will go to the website we’re about to launch and see a questionnaire asking them their interests, natural abilities, passion, and future prospects among others and it’s this information that will guide our lecturers to make these students what they want to be through competency-based teaching,” Muganga clarified about the new formula.
The CBE formula which has been under tight scrutiny by the Victoria University administration will be implemented starting with the September intake, 2022 academic year.
How the CBE Formula Works
Well, here is the kernel of the story, we all agree that Almighty God gifted us with different talents, skills and capabilities. In a field like Journalism, you may be good at news writing and poor at news editing, so under the CBE formula, a lecturer aims at building your competence in that specific area of your capability. Want more examples? Ok, Let’s say you’re good in Software Engineering, a Victoria University lecturer will make sure, you’re fine-tuned into a world-class material by not feeding you a heap of theories but Software Engineering hands-on skills.
”When we discover that you can do better in this but not in that, our lecturer helps to build and strengthen your competence based on your ability and by the time you foot out of our lecturer rooms, you will be that fittest graduate who may choose to even start own job and employ others but in case you don’t, we believe the skills we shall have quipped you with, will see you giving bloody nose to your competitors during the job search. They’ve papers, you have skills but also smartest papers that even show your competence level, isn’t that amazing?” excited Muganga questions.
How Will Victoria University Apply Competence-Based Education Formula?
Let’s put semester one a side since it’s much of introduction to the course, in the first year-semester two, students will go through Career Employability Program (CEP) which is under Career Employable Hub (CEH) and under this, students are prepared with soft skills that employers are looking for.
For some of our readers, soft skills, also known as common skills or core skills, are skills applicable to all professions. These include critical thinking, problem-solving, public speaking, professional writing, teamwork, digital literacy, leadership, professional attitude, work ethic, career management, and intercultural fluency… feel free to add on…
”Most of the graduates today, don’t know how to write business emails, winning application letters, CVs, memos, how to use phones at work, how to use computers, so we intend to teach them all this through CEH and by the way Frank, did you know at Victoria University all students have laptops? Those who can’t manage to buy we assist them through our laptop loan scheme. So by the time our students graduate, they are already computer wizards and ready to scoop jobs requiring computer skills,” says Prof.Muganga adding that after mastering the above skills, students are awarded certificates.
Back to how Victoria University will apply the CBE formula, in the second year, students go through another program called Work Integrated Learning (WIL Program).
Still, for some of our readers, Work Integrated Learning is a form of experiential education that integrates a student’s academic studies with quality experiences within a workplace or practice setting. WIL experiences include an engaged partnership of at least: an academic institution, a host organization/company and a student.
Prof. Muganga also revealed that he has already inked partnerships with over 160 major companies in Uganda to help co-educate/train Victoria University students. So this means that when you join Victoria University you don’t have to worry about how to access companies for your internship or even where to get a job immediately after your studies…all is sorted, courtesy of Prof.Muganga’s innovation.
Here is another interesting point, most students when they get an internship opportunity, they find themselves mopping, serving tea, and photocopying company papers among other funny activities. Guess what, Victoria University doesn’t tolerate this for its beloved students, Prof.Muganga says under WIL program, they hired professionals from Canada who designed a guide to help supervisors know how to handle students and which activities they are expected to do.
”This guide tells a supervisor what to look for from a student, how do you assess a student, as a mentor at work which questions do you ask a student among others. Not only that, but this guide will also help the supervisor understand various students’ competencies, what they can do better and what they can’t. So our students are already secured from those funny activities we see students from other Universities doing in some companies.”
Finally, after graduation, Prof.Muganga says, a student gets two transcripts;
1. Academic transcript which states all courses taken, grades received and degrees conferred, details of the degree class and grades one scored in each unit or module. The second transcript is;
2. Competences and Skills transcript which states student’s skills and competence level… let’s say; communication skills, computer skills, ethics and integrity at work among others. This transcript also shows where you attained the skills and includes the contacts of your supervisor in case your employers need to verify your papers…i mean, this is the kind of education that will make you a class part in this Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR).
Credit: SwiftNews
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