Contribution of vocational education and training towards employment among the youth

Abstract

This study examined the contribution of vocational education and training on employment among the youth in Uganda. The study employed a cross sectional design using purely quantitative methods of data collection. The study employed the logit estimation technique and the empirical model was estimated using cross-sectional data from the UNHS 2016/17 of the Uganda Bureau of Statistics. The findings reveal that education, marital status, sex, location and region, household income all affect youth employment in Uganda. The marginal effect has expected signs as per the existing theory and the findings of the study are consistent with other existing studies. The study concluded that the results showed that six explanatory variables tested were significant in explaining youth employment in Uganda. Marital status, sex and location are negatively significant while education, region and household income are positively significant. The results further reveal that vocational education plays a key role in employment and it was found that it has the highest impact on employment compared to all the other levels of education. Vocational education had the highest marginal effects meaning that students who have attained vocational education are more likely to become employed than their counterparts with no education. The study concluded that education mostly vocational education influences youth employment in Uganda. The study recommends that government should increase youth Education programmes, increase skills training programmes, put into consideration different youth age groups while making policies and increase funding for youth programmes.