Uganda Petroleum Institute starts new International courses

The Uganda Petroleum Institute in Kigumba will start offering five courses that are internationally recognized to produce “highly qualified and specialized” technicians needed by oil companies.

Students that will enroll under the new courses will not have to undertake an additional six months training at international petroleum institutes for certification because the courses are globally recognized.

The new courses which are contained in Uganda Petroleum Institute in Kigumba’s five year institutional development plan launched recently at Sheraton hotel in Kampala include:

• Petroleum engineering
• Chemical engineering
• Mechanical maintenance
• Instrumentation maintenance
• Electrical maintenance.

The new programs have been developed by Wayne Bougas, who previously headed petroleum training centers in Indonesia and Thailand.

The upstream phase involves exploration activities while downstream involves development and production. The institute has been offering a general diploma in petroleum studies.

Students who graduate from the institute undertake an additional six months apprenticeship course at international petroleum institute before they are certified to work in the petroleum industry.

The 88 students who have already graduated from the institute have been certified. However some of them have not yet got jobs.

“The oil companies are telling Ugandans there are no qualified people but when we go to them they tell us there are no jobs,” said, Peter Tumusiime, who was among 58 students certified by City and Guild institute in UK last month.

“There is no much work with oil companies now because government has not issued exploration and production licenses. By the time they get licenses we shall have graduated many,” said. Dr. Dick Kamugasha, UPIK head of secretariat.