This edition is another part in our series on the emerging oil and gas industry. Focusing on national participation, we look at the issue of skills and employment.
Employment is one of the crucial avenues through which a country’s nationals benefit from the highly-valued petroleum industry. The bulk of jobs in this industry is in the vocational and craftsman disciplines, where technicians such as drilling engineers, rig operators, wielders, builders and fabricators are highly demanded.
But as exploration continues and oil production draws nearer, there is growing concern that Ugandan technicians may not be skilled enough, to find employment in an industry that demands excellent technical skills and precision.
Listen to this edition as we explore the issues surrounding this debate. We sample some of the skills already available in the market, as well as the training facilities and examine if the skills they are teaching will serve the oil and gas industry. We also visit Uganda Petroleum Institute Kigumba, to understand how different this institution set up specially to train petroleum technicians is from all the technical colleges around the country.