BY F K MALE
A report has revealed that 58 Percent of youths Neither in Employment,Education or Training are coming from regions distributed according to poverty levels.
The highest concentration of such youth is in Bukedi at 61.4 percent , followed by Lango 49.3 percent , Elgon 44.1 percent , Busoga 43.5 percent , Bunyoro 42.5 percent and Kigezi 42.1 percent .
Of these , the majority are the unskilled , those coming from poor rural households , disabled and substance abusers . Many of these fall under 25-27 years of age according to the report .
The results are from the latest report by the National Planning Authority launched this week in Kampala.
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Hamis Mugendawala, the NPA manager policy research notes that NEETs are a result of a combination of factors which should be urgently addressed. He was concerned that most of such drop out of school in or immediately after primary five He said; “Majority of youth NEETs leave school due to lack of funds, being female is also associated with NEET, because they give up school or work for gender related roles as per society constructs .”
He also mentioned that the socioeconomic status of these youths’ families is a major determinant. To him , those from rich households are less like to become NEETs against 27 percent likelihood while those from poor background at 60 percent chance of becoming NEETs.
In addition, the same report revealed that a total of 4.2 Million youths in Uganda are NEETs, translating to to 41 percent of young people in the country .
Besides young people between 18-29 years of age are persistently out if the labor market , education and training as well as other aspects of society.
Between 2016 and 2021, Uganda economy created around 1.6 million jobs , but since then many youths are unable to create or find jobs and the unemployment has increased from 13 percent to 16.5 percent.
Martin Wandera, the director for labour , employment and occupational safety and health at the Ministry of Gender , Labour and Social Development disagrees with statistics from the report .
To him, 4.2 million youths unemployed is such a big number and he advised that the report needed to be revised and tallied with updated statistics from the ministry .
He noted that by the ministry statistics , 2.5 million youths are NEETs when all required factors are considered.
He said that NPA excluded a number of vital parameters like house wives and working age variations which could have made the report more comprehensive.