KAMPALA — Uganda has flagged off a three-member team to represent the country at the 48th WorldSkills International Competition, scheduled to take place in Shanghai, China, from September 22 to 27, 2026.
The team comprises competitors in cooking, welding, and health and social services, with officials saying the country’s participation will provide an opportunity to benchmark Uganda’s technical and vocational education and training system against international standards.
Dr Safinah Kisu Museene, the official delegate of WorldSkills Uganda and Commissioner for Health Education and Training, said Uganda is among a relatively small number of African countries participating in WorldSkills International.
She said Uganda became the 82nd member of the global organisation, which brings countries together to promote skills development, standardise occupations and training methods, and expose members to modern technologies and equipment.
Museene said Uganda’s competitors include a participant in cooking from the Institute of Tourism in Jinja, a welding competitor from Alua Technical Institute, and a health and social services competitor from Kabalole School of Comprehensive Nursing.
The competitors are expected to leave Uganda on September 14 to allow them to prepare ahead of the competition.
The team will be accompanied by experts in the three trades as well as other technical and vocational education specialists who will use the competition to learn from international best practices.
Museene said the exposure will enable Uganda to identify approaches that can be adopted to improve skills training, assessment, occupational standards, technology and teaching methodologies in the country.
The delegation will also include officials from the assessment board and the TVET Council.
Speaking during the flag-off ceremony, TVET Council Chairperson Allen Kagina, who represented the Ag. Minister of Education and Sports, John C. Muyingo, said Uganda must treat skills development as a key driver of economic transformation rather than an alternative for learners who have failed in academic education.
Kagina said countries such as Germany, Switzerland, Australia, Singapore, South Korea and China have demonstrated the importance of technical training in building strong economies and addressing youth unemployment.
She said Uganda’s participation in WorldSkills is important because competitions expose the country to external standards and help identify gaps between national training systems and international practice.
“WorldSkills is not simply about winning medals,” Kagina said, while challenging the Ugandan competitors to return with gold after the country’s previous best performance was a silver medal.
She said the bigger value of the competition lies in improving Uganda’s skills development system through exposure to modern equipment, emerging technologies, international training methods and partnerships.
Kagina challenged every member of the delegation, including those who are not competing, to return with reports on what they learn in Shanghai and how the lessons can be applied in Uganda.
“Nobody goes as a tourist,” she said, stressing that every delegate has a responsibility to benchmark Uganda’s training, assessment, occupational standards, technologies and methodologies against international practice.
She also urged the competitors to represent Uganda with discipline, integrity, creativity, precision and professionalism, saying their conduct abroad would reflect on the country.
Kagina encouraged the team to use the Shanghai competition as a classroom, laboratory and networking platform, urging them to establish partnerships that can continue beyond the event.
She said Uganda’s participation in WorldSkills has progressively grown since the country held its first national skills competition in 2018.
According to Kagina, the country is now moving from merely observing international skills competitions to actively participating and competing on the global stage.
She urged the competitors to return with knowledge, innovations, technologies, partnerships and lessons that can strengthen TVET institutions and skills development across Uganda.
