Free Skilling: Govt Hails Grant Thornton Academy On First Graduation Milestone as New Classes Start

John Chrososytom Muyingo, Uganda’s Education and Sports Minister in charge of Higher Education, has underscored the importance of practical skills development, terming it a game changer in the government’s fight against the disturbingly increasing levels of unemployment.

Muyingo made the remarks as Grant Thornton Foundation Practical Skills Development Academy held its maiden graduation ceremony for its first cohorts of fresh university graduates following a six-month free-of-charge comprehensive training.

At the same colorful graduation event, a second bunch of learners comprising twenty-five university fresh graduates was unveiled, rendering them the rarest opportunity of being equipped with the much sought-after practical skills training lacking in the majority of Uganda’s higher institutions of learning, leading to massive unemployment. 

Each year, a total of fifty freshly graduated university students are going to be offered an opportunity to enroll at the Grant Thornton Foundation’s Practical Skills Development Academy along Lugogo By-Pass as one and part of the esteemed audit and accounting firm’s corporate social responsibility services[CSRs] rendered in Uganda.

Groundbreaking Skilling Initiative

John Rujoki, the Uganda Revenue Authority’s [URA’s] Commissioner General, in May last year, officially inaugurated the first-of-it’s-kind free practical skills development academy in the country, setting in motion the maiden skilling classes, climaxing into the first academy’s graduation event, opening the doors of the world of employment to the lucky finalists.

Although Muyingo was scheduled to preside over the graduation event, he was sent on another assignment by the overall Minister, First Lady Janet Kataha Museveni, delegating the Ministry’s Commissioner in charge of university training, Timothy Musoke to present him.

Commissioner Timothy Musoke, delivering Muyingo’s speech, congratulated the academy’s top managers and instructors upon the academy’s maiden graduation, emphasizing that their skilling program boasts the government’s own campaign in relation to equipping learners with job-related skills right from secondary school up to the higher institutions of learning.

Grant Thorn’s Impact

He was glad to learn from Grant Thornton’s CEO, Anil Patel that twenty-three out of the maiden twenty-five graduates of the academy had by the time of graduation, already been helped by the firm to secure gainful employment while the rest were due to be absolved into the employment of the firm.

The Commissioner was also pleased by the fact that the academy doesn’t stop at only skilling its learners, but dedicates time to teaching them ethics and integrity, without which he said, the government’s efforts to stop acts of corruption and other related vices among the future Ugandan working force, would largely come to naught.

The company’s CEO, Anil Patel guaranteed that the academy will continue to offer practical skills services to Ugandans for as long as Grant Thorn continues to operate in Uganda.

He growingly thanked all the instructors who dedicated their precious time to offer free of charge their hands-on expertise services to the academy, emphasizing that without them, the academy would find it difficult to offer skills to those badly in need of them.

Transforming Graduates into Professionals

The graduates thanked Grant Thornton for offering them practical skills free of charge and committed themselves to using what they had learned to offer dedicated, professional, and ethical services. 

Students of the academy are drawn from graduates of business-related university degree programs and then subjected to tests before picking out in the meantime a total of twenty beneficiaries who then undergo a six-month hands-on training. The same is repeated in the same year, implying fifty students benefit from the practical skilling program each calendar year.

Six hundred million shillings is spent annually by Grant Thornton to run its Corporate Social Responsibility Services in Uganda. Such services include donation of blood to save lives, assisting the Cancer Institute at Mulago, environmental conservation in partnership with Kampala Capital City Authorities, and education charity services comprising of running the practical skills academy, among others.

Partnerships and Expertise

Makerere University Business School’s Associate Professor Vincent Bagiire drew much of the curriculum which the esteemed hands-on instructors use to impart invaluable practical skills and knowledge to the learners at the academy.

Instructors at the academy are drawn mostly from Grant Thornton itself and the rest are sourced from some of the biggest and esteemed employers around in the country. 

Among the guests included a delegation of Grant Thornton’s officials from Tanzania, Geoffrey Kiguhuru, an insurance guru as well as president of the Institute of Corporate Governance Uganda, the head of the institute, and officials of Bank of Baroda.