UPPC to Revive the Printing school to skill Ugandans

The Uganda Printing and Publishing Corporation is planning to revive the printing school to skill Ugandans to get gainful employment. 

Kenneth Oluka, the acting  managing Director UPPC, told guests at a breakfast meeting  in Kampala,  to launch activities to mark  120th  Anniversary  celebrations that there is no school that exclusively trains printers in Uganda.

“As a notional cooperation, as a public enterprise, we want to make a contribution of skilling young people through training them in printing. Train people who go to do work in Nasser  road in ethical   methods of printing” he stated.  

He is optimistic  that the printing school will be operational by next year.

“We are already in the formative stages of reviving that school and we hope by next year it will take off” he said.

He asked agencies interested in skilling youth like UBITEB, GIZ and the national curriculum development centre to partner with UPPC to deliver this project.

The Entebbe based  Corporation is now appealing for funding from the government to conduct its work.

In his appeal,  Oluka called on Ministries, Departments and Agencies-MDAs to give them business since UPPC is not capitalized by the government adding that their rates are pocket friendly.

“Last year we actually reduced our rates. And the idea was to take care of low income earners especially the music industry; registration of their copy rights.  So we have like the classifieds that you have in the newspapers so that we take care of every Ugandan, because gazetting is very important” he noted.

Plans are also under way to set up a national archive and museum for important government documents as they mark their 120th anniversary. 

The corporation is also planning to revive its core role by publishing books, research and academic papers to promote literacy and  contribute to the education sector

“We have a number of books which we can donate to the law schools. We have a number of books that we can put in public libraries so that people can read. We also have plans of taking a lead role in promoting literacy in this country".

The Cooperation will be printing and publishing materials which are not necessarily subject matter books approved by the ministry of education and the national curriculum development center.

These will be distributed to schools to address different subjects.

“They might be about hygiene, they might be about why you should protect the environment, and they might be about something to do with preventing pregnancies and early child marriages.  And then we collect children, and we do reading sessions over a weekend”  he averred.

Because the reading culture in the country is so poor, Mr.Oluka is optimistic that this move will promote literacy

“As a cooperation we think we can make a cooperation. We need to teach our children to read, we have those plans as a cooperation”

Hajji Yunus Kakande the permanent secretary in the office of the President who represented Minister Milly Babalanda ordered all MDAs to support the government publishers; UPPC and the New Vision.

The president issued a directive that requires all MDAs in Uganda to  surrender all their printing jobs to the government publishers.