By Dr Julius Babyetsiza
In September, I published an article in the Daily Express titled “Museveni’s Blind Spot: Graduate Unemployment and the Vision He Refuses to See,” where I presented a concrete, evidence-based solution to the persistent crisis of graduate unemployment in Uganda. The solution, the Global University Business Club (GUBCCo) initiative, is neither experimental nor aspirational. It is a structured, tested framework designed to provide thousands of graduates with practical, sustainable pathways into enterprise and employment.
Yet despite the clarity, urgency, and scientific grounding of the proposal, government has responded with complete silence. And that silence is illuminating, as if to say, “We killed our animal; were you with us?”
That is, in sharp contrast, government recently has issued directives requiring all universities to adopt competence-based curricula by 2027/28, a move that was widely publicized across major media outlets, including NTV Uganda. This contrast exposes a troubling pattern: policy responses appear swift only when they fit neatly within entrenched bureaucratic comfort zones.
When an initiative reinforces familiar structures, official communication flows: press conferences are held, statements issued, committees formed. However, when a citizen-driven, research-informed, and non-governmental initiative such as GUBCCo challenges the state to rethink how it engages with graduates and the private sector, the response is silence. No acknowledgement. No inquiry. No engagement. Nothing.
Curriculum reform is not inherently misguided. Any country concerned with employability should continuously assess whether its education system equips graduates with relevant skills. However, meaningful reform must be guided by scientific evidence, not political convenience or intuition. For instance, solution to graduates’ unemployment crisis in Uganda must be paired with practical mechanisms that connect graduates to real opportunities. Updating syllabi alone, without creating structured transition pathways into the labour market, cannot meaningfully address the unemployment.
If vision is only celebrated when it flatters the status quo, then Uganda is not executing a national strategy; it is performing political theatre.
Ignoring a scientifically grounded solution like GUBCCo is not only selective but dangerously short-sighted. It reduces the national conversation on graduate unemployment to curriculum adjustments, as though rewriting course outlines can, on its own, create jobs. Uganda’s crisis does not stem from a lack of competence. It stems lack of university-industry-community knowledge transfer and as well as limited graduates’ pathways to labour market. That is to say, the absences of platforms that help graduates apply what they know, transform ideas into business, and enter the world of work with guided support. That is precisely the gap GUBCCo was built to fill.
To disregard GUBCCo initiative is to pretend that we do not fully understand Uganda’s graduates’ unemployment problem. Worse still, the silence suggests an unspoken fear—fear of ideas that originate outside government, fear of solutions that empower citizens independently, and fear of innovations that cannot be easily controlled or absorbed into political machinery. If it is not fear, then what explains this avoidance? Is it the old saying, “We killed our animal”?
Development cannot flourish where insecurity and selective engagement dictate decision-making. Uganda does not need another curriculum overhaul as its primary response to unemployment. What the country needs are real, immediate, evidence-based programmes that connect graduates to enterprise creation, mentorship, and productive work. GUBCCo offers exactly that: a platform proven to convert academic learning into business activity, income, and community-level economic uplift.
By ignoring this initiative, government sends a harmful message to universities, industry, and communities that innovative ideas matter only when they do not challenge existing systems. That mindset breeds stagnation.
If government is genuinely committed to addressing graduate unemployment, it needs to engage with GUBCCo openly and substantively. It must show willingness to rely on scientific evidence, not intuition. GUBCCo was developed to act as a living laboratory of this writer’s PhD study examining “Learning by Doing in Entrepreneurship Clubs and Hubs for Graduates’ Gainful Self-Employment.”
Silence is not leadership. Action is. Dialogue is. Partnership is. Uganda’s graduates deserve more than curriculum reviews. They deserve a government courageous enough to embrace viable solutions—even those it did not originate.
The writer is the founder Global University Business Club (GUBCCo) initiative
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