New Vision (Kampala)
Joel Ogwang
8 July 2009
Kampala — THE government plans to set-up a school to train Ugandans who will excavate petroleum and gas products.
The institute of petroleum exploration will be located near the defunct cooperative college in Kigumba, Masindi district, said education and sports minister, Namirembe Bitamazire.
"The government is in advanced stage of starting the institute. It should be open by the end of this year," she said.
Designing of a selection criterion for science students and the curriculum are on-going. Initiation of the institute comes in the wake of discoveries of massive oil and gas deposits in western Uganda.
More government-funded geological studies, meanwhile, continue to explore and locate potential oil and gas fields across the country. "We can't rely on expatriates alone to mine the oil. We need to train Ugandans to ensure sustainable mining of petroleum and oil," she said.
The minister decried the high unemployment problem in the country, calling for more investment in the hospitality and industrial sectors. She said the new free-for-all primary and secondary education programs were introduced to enable poor Ugandans attain education necessary to fight poverty.
A proportion of 31% (about 9.3 million) of Uganda's 30 million population lives in absolute poverty, with over 75% employed in the agriculture sector, data from the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) indicate.
Living in absolute poverty or below the poverty line, according to the World Bank, implies a person survives on less than a dollar (sh2, 200) a day. Bitamazire said the sh1 trillion budgetary allocated to the education sector in the 2009/10 fiscal year heightened public expectation for quality education.
"Our challenge is now to provide quality education by dealing with challenges of high drop-out rate, absenteeism and poor attitude. This requires a joint effort of all Ugandans, not government alone," she said.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2009 New Vision. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
