MUBS Career Guidance Office

This is the Career Master's workshop for career teachers of secondary schools that was conducted in MUBS Main library.

Manager Career Guidance Office in a group photo in Malaysia.

This morning i and my colleague Mr Ahmed Walugembe had a career guidance session with the S6 students of Namirembe Hillside High School. This is a special school to me because its produced two young lawyers for family. I must say i was very impressed with the quality of students i met. Thanks to the management of the School and ofcourse can not fail to recognise Makerere University Business School management for the supporting and empowering young people..I love you students of Hillside and looking forward to meeting you again at MUBS next year as freshers. Best of luck in your exams

Career enhancement session at Uganda Martyrs SS Namugongo yesterday. Visiting secondary schools in the different regions of this country has been one of the most touching experience. Some schools we visit and students are seated under trees while in some regions they got beautiful threatre halls with mounted projectors. Then you imagine how these students in both environments can be subjected to one exam..This quickly takes me back to the quote" If you test the ability of a fish by climbing a tree, it could leave its entire life thinking it is stupid" Therefore proposing to the education policy makers of this country to rethink otherwise i dont entirely believe that the students in some regions in this country are all stupid as indicated in UCE and UACE results.

A weekend is the most precious time for any employed person for obvious reasons. This is one thing that my job robbed me of. Yesterday I and my colleague Ahmed spent the entire day holding career guidance sessions with students in the Seeta hill College and Iganga SSS.This is a job i enjoy doing since it gives me an opportunty to share with the young people in their career challenges.Like one of the most prominent Proffesors in this country put it that "the future of this country does not lie in its diamonds but it quality of its people". My visits to the variuos secondary schools in this country has proved that we have alot more to improve the quality of our human capital. I was very surprised yesterday to learn that governement took a decision to introduce ICT at secondary level but some schools have never recieved a single computer then i wondered how this specific subject can be examined in national exams
and alot more which i will put together and submit at a future date.
I would like to thank Makerere University Business School management for taking a decision to offer free country wide career guidance to both secondary school students,career masters and mistresses. Youth empowerment initiatives like these are very good for any developing country like Uganda

Last week, the MUBS Career Guidance Office participated at the 2015 Nabisunsa Girls Secondary School Career expo. This event is meant to expose students to the different career options available and also help them make informed decisions.Numerous institutions participated and i have no doubt that the students enjoyed the event. Once again i extend my sincere appreciation to management of Nabisunsa Girls for the intiative.Special thanks to MUBS for offering free career coaching to all students in secondary schools in the country.

This is part of career guidance office activities.

The Career guidence office hosted the principal yesterday at the former entreprenure office to talk to our students who have been training how to make liquid soap and crafts.

MUBS Job & Career Fair 2015 organised in partnership with Juice FM,
Century Bottling Company, the Observer and Aisec Uganda. Special thanks to MUBS management for supporting this initiative. We were honoured to host over 70 organisations/ employers last week who shared with our students the job, management training and field attachment opportunities within their organisations.Thumps to every students that participated — with Waswa Balunywa.

HOW TO START A BUSINESS.
Simple Steps:
Step One: Deciding to start. Push Factor:One can be pushed by unfavorable conditions like loss/lack of jobs, increased cost of living, and loss of a bread winner
Pull Factor: One can be while others are attracted pulled by the benefits of starting a personal business. The attractions towards business startup include freedom to do what you want, safer and easy way to accumulate wealth and a sign of success and hard work.
Step Two: Idea generation.
a) Get a mentor and personal coach
b) Do window shopping and develop a network of friends
c) Learn to volunteer to those who are operating personal businesses.
e) Attend public lecturers.
Step Three: Evaluating options.
While you may get many ideas that may seem equally good, you need to choose the best. What makes the best? It should be; a) marketable, b) legally acceptable, d) having potential to grow into a lager business, e) having accessible resources, f) able to generate enough sales to make profit. It is not easy to have all these conditions in equally high scores but aim at choosing the one with the highest scores in (a to f).
Step Four: Mobilizing resources.
Resources include time, material in puts (opening stock for traders), human resources, operating space, and market information. Do not focus on money first but rather what the money can do. Several sources; getting stock on credit, fundraising from family and friends (I don’t know why it is very easy to raise money from family and friends for a party but very difficult to get for a business. We need to change the practice).
Step Five: Growing the business. This is the last step in the process of starting a business but also the first step in the life of a business and has no end. You need to make every effort to avoid misallocation to reduce wastage of resources. Do not rush for luxury in the early age. The reason most of our business do not survive the first 1-3 years is not lack of market but financial indiscipline. Do not finance personal pleasure with business money, avoid pledging social support using the assets of the business, pay your business liabilities like salary, taxes and other bills on time. The story of how to start a business is much longer than this article but I pray that you will pick a few tips

Entrepreneurship development: Does the teaching method matter?
The role of entrepreneurship is now universally acknowledged. This has led to interest in the development of entrepreneurial values (EVs) for economic transformation through resource productivity driven by superior human capital. EVs drive other factors of production through resource mobilisation, value addition, distribution and wealth regeneration. EVs encompass dynamism, risk propensity, Innovativeness, need for achievement and entrepreneurial self-efficacy. There is an ongoing debate around the “born” versus “made” schools of thought about EVs. The “born” side argues that entrepreneurial values are born while the “made” argues that we can nurture EVs through education. I tend to agree with the “made”.
The question is; how do we teach EVs? Effective teaching styles involve activities that promote individual skills, attitudes, behaviors and capabilities that foster the development of learners’ EVs. Subsequently, learners should be able to acquire knowledge, skills, abilities and positive attitudes towards personal responsibility to succeed in life. In studying the role of teaching methodologies, there are three fundamental questions; what should be taught? (Contents of the curriculum), how should it be taught? (Pedagogy, process and learning stakeholders’ interaction and relationship) and who should facilitate it? (Nature of facilitators, their educational experience and other extra-curricular competencies).
Looking at the question of who to teach entrepreneurship in terms of experience, personality and other human resource specifications, effective entrepreneurship education is delivered by facilitators with an entrepreneurial orientation and experience. Therefore, while education as an independent concept is perceived as a social infrastructure, an entrepreneurial curriculum cannot be effective if the facilitators are not entrepreneurial. In order to develop an entrepreneurial student, the lecturers need to have some level of entrepreneurial experience beyond academic excellence (CGPA).
In teaching entrepreneurship, there is also need to involve students in the business processes so that they interface with reality and successful people. That is how Germany, Singapore, China, Korea, New Zealand, US and Australia have managed to move forward. A call to the authorities in our Ugandan education practice and policy sectors; please do not only focus on supporting institutions with buildings alone but also look at developing the teachers if the purpose of transforming the educational sector must be met.
Let part of the “Bonabagagawale fund” go to business schools and support student startups. This will facilitate experiential learning through new venture creation so as to provide the realism and functional approach towards entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Experiential learning involves activities such as business idea generation, business clinics and startups. We need to move away from the “chalk and talk” teaching method to the “walk and talk” approaches. This way, we can teach for impact not for passing just.

MUBS annually organizes a Job and Career fair where we invite different organisations to present to the students the different career options, training and job opportunities available in their respective industries and fields. We also request the organisation to exhibit the different products and services they offer.
This year the fair shall be held on April 21st - 24th, 2015 at the MUBS Main Campus under the theme “Addressing Youth Unemployment".
We are inviting all organisations to participate.For more details call us on 070110129 or 0712178617