The Business, Technical and Vocational Education and Training (BTVET) Strategic Plan 2011 – 2020 also known as Skilling Uganda is a program that was launched in 2012, expected to usher in a paradigm shift for skills development in Uganda and enhance productivity and growth with the main purpose of creating employable skills and competencies relevant in the labor market.
In that regard, the National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC) is a good number of steps ahead as the corporation’s Corporate Plan identifies the training and development function as a key strategy for unceasingly developing and imparting relevant skills to staff, so as to improve service delivery after all, an organization is only as good as the people who work for it.
In line with this strategic goal, the Training and Capacity Development (TCD) Department – under the Business and Scientific Services (BSS) Directorate was put in place and has continuously embarked on key capacity building initiatives, geared towards staff performance enhancement for the last Seven (7) years via a fully functional Vocational Skills Development
Facility housed at the corporation’s Ggaba (VSDF), which offers Training Needs Assessment, Development of Tailor made courses, Short term attachments/On job training (home and away), Face to face learning and Creative Learning.
The Ggaba Vocational Training program aims to develop the quality of relevant capacity development initiatives, both internally and externally in order to sustainably meet customer expectations and strives to be an international beacon of excellence in capacity development and knowledge management.
In the context and jurisdiction of NWSC, training for staff performance improvement is solely defined as a process of interactive participation, where staff are imparted with applicable, spot–on and tailor made knowledge, with the aim of improving service delivery.
The specific objectives of the Vocational skills development are to build capacity of the NWSC technicians and external customers so as to ensure better asset management and enhance the corporation’s operational efficiency and service delivery.
With secured financial and technical funding from the German International Cooperation (GIZ), and collaboration with the Directorate of Industrial Training – Ministry of Education and Sports (DIT–MoES), the Corporation has constructed the Gaba VSDF school, managed to develop and accredit modular vocational and technical courses for:
i) Industrial plumbers,
ii) Electro–mechanical technicians,
iii) Industrial welders,
iv) Water quality technicians,
v) Sewerage services technicians, photo voltaic and solar energy technicians,
vi) Customer service advisors,
vii) Vocational training instructors,
viii) Heavy equipment operators,
ix) Workers’ PAS certification for informally skilled technicians, among other skills.
In the past seven (7) years, over 1000 technicians within NWSC jurisdiction have been trained in the mentioned disciplines and, so far three (3) graduation ceremonies have been successfully conducted at Ggaba VSDF with a total of 836 technicians acquiring various DIT certification. The Training and Capacity Development Department is committed to capacity development of all staff.
