Uganda’s education system is preparing too many young people to earn qualifications instead of preparing them to solve problems, according to entrepreneur Julius Kyazze, who says employers should stop asking graduates what degree they possess and instead ask what they are actually capable of doing.
The Swangz Avenue co-founder believes the country’s conversation about education has become fixated on certificates at the expense of practical skills, leaving thousands of graduates struggling to fit into a rapidly changing labour market.
“We’re asking the wrong question,” Kyazze says during an interview reflecting on nearly two decades of building businesses in the creative industry. “The question shouldn’t be, ‘Do you have a degree?’ The question should be, ‘What are you able to do?'”
His comments come at a time when youth unemployment remains one of Uganda’s biggest economic challenges despite increasing numbers of university graduates entering the job market every year.
Kyazze says the mismatch between education and employment has become impossible to ignore. He recalls meeting a man in his village who was selling family land to finance his daughter’s education. Curious, he asked what course she intended to pursue.
The answer was nursing. Kyazze says he immediately began calculating whether the investment made financial sense. The value of the land being sold, he argues, could take many years to recover through the expected income from the profession.
To him, the issue was not the choice of nursing but whether families are making education decisions based on employment prospects, market realities and long-term value rather than social expectations.
He believes Uganda has normalised measuring education by the certificates students collect instead of the skills they leave with. That philosophy has shaped recruitment across the businesses he leads.
Whenever he interviews prospective employees, Kyazze says he is less interested in academic credentials than in whether candidates demonstrate practical ability, curiosity and the willingness to learn.
Those same beliefs informed the creation of Swangz Creative Academy, which trains young people for careers in content creation, production and other creative disciplines.
The results, he says, have surprised even him. After one graduation ceremony, he posted photographs of the graduates on social media. Within hours, companies had begun contacting him looking for content creators and production professionals.
When he passed the requests to the academy, he discovered most graduates had already secured employment. “They’re all employed,” he recalls being told less than a day after graduation.
To Kyazze, that experience demonstrates that employers increasingly value competence over credentials. He insists he is not dismissing higher education. Instead, he argues universities should become more responsive to changing industries and prepare graduates for opportunities emerging in sectors such as digital media, content creation, technology and the wider creative economy.
He questions whether some subjects taught today remain relevant to Uganda’s economic realities. “There are things we’re still teaching that don’t prepare young people for today’s opportunities,” he says, adding that education should evolve alongside the economy rather than remain anchored in outdated priorities.
The creative industry, he believes, represents one of Africa’s biggest untapped employment opportunities. Yet governments, regulators and even parents continue to underestimate its potential because they still view it primarily as entertainment rather than business.
Kyazze argues that while Africa has no shortage of talented young people, it lacks enough institutions capable of developing practical skills and connecting those skills to employment.
As artificial intelligence, digital platforms and content-driven businesses reshape global work, he believes Uganda cannot afford to continue measuring education only by graduation ceremonies and framed certificates. “The future,” he says, “belongs to people who can actually do something.”
