Building vocational skills for marginalised youth in Uganda:

Abstract

Educational exclusion leads to the marginalisation of many youth in regards to employment and other livelihood opportunities. Vocational education and training (VET) is expected to offer skills to ameliorate this situation. This paper presents findings of an exploratory study conducted on four VET programmes for marginalised youth in the rural areas of Mbarara district, south-western Uganda to examine the current VET practices and how the youth are prepared for the labour market and livelihood opportunities. The findings show that VET can improve access to labour market and livelihood opportunities, but a number of areas require improvement.