A major facelift and upgrade of St Kizito Technical Institute, Kitovu in Masaka Diocese, has been completed under the Uganda Skills Development Project (USDP), enhancing the institution’s capacity to offer professional vocational skills training to the youth.
The government-funded upgrade has seen major infrastructure improvements and acquisition of modern instructional materials worth shillings 8.60 billion aimed at improving the quality of learning at the Catholic Church-founded institution. The renovation works include three fully equipped modern workshops, a new administration complex, staff quarters, and students’ hostels.
Project Manager Dean Daniel Amala says the new facilities and instructional materials are expected to transform the institute’s academic profile and enable it to start offering diploma-level courses. Besides strengthening traditional vocational courses, the institute has also been empowered to introduce Electronics and Telecommunications studies.
Amala says the project will further enable the institute to increase student enrollment and expand its relevance to the community through short holiday courses for other community members. The Bishop of Masaka Diocese, Serverus Jjumba, says the project complements the vision of the diocese’s earlier leaders who sought to promote vocational training as a means of equipping young people with survival skills.
Established by the Catholic Church in 1944, the institute operated as a rural trade school until 1973, when it was upgraded to a technical school before becoming an institute in 2011. It currently operates as a government-aided institution. Bishop Jjumba notes that despite the transitions, the institute had never undergone a major infrastructural renovation, while some of the instructional materials had become outdated and were unable to support modern vocational training demands.He has challenged instructors to effectively utilise the new facilities to produce graduates capable of competing favourably on both national and regional vocational job markets-URN. Give us feedback on this story through our email: kamwokyatimes@gmail.com
