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Learning informally:  A case for arts 
in vocational education and training 
in Uganda

 
Authors 
MAXWELL OPENJURU LADAAH Research Associate Gulu University,  
GEORGE LADAAH OPENJURU Vice Chancellor and Professor of Education, Gulu University, 
KATHY SANFORD Professor, Language & Literacy, University of Victoria 
BRUNO DE OLIVEIRA JAYME Assistant Professor Curriculum, Teaching and Learning, University of Manitoba 
DAVID MONK Senior Lecturer, Education and Humanities, Gulu University

keywords 
arts education, vocational training, Indigenous 
education, informal learning, arts employment 

 
abstract
This paper advocates for the inclusion of the arts 
in vocational learning programs in Uganda as 
an integrated form of holistic learning oriented 
towards empowerment and entrepreneurship. 
Using community-based research in the context 
of vocational education and training, our data 
emerged from open-ended interviews, focus 
groups and youth-led radio talk shows with 
stakeholders from public and private sectors, 
instructors, artists, and Non-Governmental 
Organisations (NGOs). Three significant themes 
arose from the data collected. First, pathways 
available to learners to become artists are limited 
by increasing neoliberal orientations towards 
education. Second, there is a thriving informal 
youth-led arts community in northern Uganda 
empowering young artists to pursue the arts as a 
livelihood. Third, the arts are socially 
delegitimated. That is, without ways for learners 
to generate income from the arts, they are not 
able to devote their time to learning through the 

arts, and their artistic endeavors are not 
recognized as important skills in their 
communities or in society. Although different, 
these three themes demonstrate that there is a 
vibrant space in the informal sector of arts to 
inform professional practices, that if supported 
by vocational education and training, have the 
potential to become important and much needed 
professional careers in Uganda. 
 

introduction 
Gulu, the site in northern Uganda where this case 
study is located, is a vibrant and chaotic city in a 
period of transition and transformation following 
30 years of civil war. As you enter the city you are 
immediately engulfed in the hustle of market 
vendors selling everything from fresh fruit to 
second hand shoes. You find tailors set up with 
their sewing machines on the side of the streets, 
artists displaying their painting and crafts for 
tourists, food vendors selling chapati and chicken, 
a myriad of small shops selling and repairing 
electronics.  Welders, wood workers, and 
mechanic shops all line the streets, and there are 
several larger markets selling agricultural produce 
and household goods. There is a vast informal 



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economy, with everyone hustling to find money for 
school fees -- the major expense for all households, 
and one of the reasons, though not the only one, 
why there is such a large number of early school 
leavers making their way into vocational programs 
(Openjuru, 2010). The result is a vast social skills 
ecosystem (Wedekind et. al, 2021) interweaving 
learning and living in informality. The Ugandan 
government is encouraging the majority youth 
population (World Bank, 2021 data places 46% of 
the population under 14 years of age) to seek out 
self-employment and vocational learning because 
there is simply very little formal employment 
available (National Planning Authority, 2013). 
Ironically, as the government, NGOs and private 
skilling programs promote critical thinking, 
creativity, innovation and an entrepreneurial 
mindset, they are also promoting a technicist 
training which takes the creativity out of learning 
by using a banking model of education. This model 
is teacher centered and leaves little room for 
adaptation or student involvement in their learning 
(Freire, 1970). The banking approach also 
streamlines technical skills in an effort for 
efficiency, and neglects developing people and their 
needs. 
 
Yet, in spite of the austere attitude towards 
learning, if you enter a little deeper into the 
aspirations and inspirations of youth in Gulu, you 
find a flourishing community of aspiring DJ’s, 
break dancers, musicians of all kinds, movie 
makers, painters, fashion designers and theatre 
performers learning and living informally, some as 
a side dish, others struggling to make a living. The 
potential of this community, and the opportunity to 
support, learn from, and build up this community 
forms the departure point of this research which is 
based on a 3-year research study examining viable 
decent living opportunities through vocational 
learning in Uganda and South Africa. This article 
focuses on Gulu and highlights the value and need 

for arts in vocational learning and arts as 
vocational learning.  We recognize that arts are 
missing in many learning programs in Uganda 
(Openjuru, 2010), however, our focus here is 
guided by our research in vocational learning.  
 

education in uganda 
Uganda is one of the five East African Countries. 
Like many other colonized nations, Uganda 
continues to use the formal education system 
introduced by Christian missionaries (Haitch & 
Miller, 2006). The colonial system of education is a 
patriarchal system (Coetzee & Du Toit, 2018), 
intending to maintain hierarchies and produce 
workers for the elite. It denigrates their cultural 
values, and removes them from educational 
experiences that matter personally to them and to 
the world at large. Mosweunyane (2013) explains 
that before the introduction of the Eurocentric 
colonial system of education, Africans educated 
their children differently, in what is labelled as an 
Indigenous system of education. This indigenous 
system of education promotes local and holistic 
ways of knowing which is consistent with the lived 
realities of the learners and the environment in 
which they are living (Hoppers, 2002; Openjuru, 
2017). In African Indigenous Education, learning 
was integrated into everyday life and the well-being 
of the community. The learning system integrated 
arts and practice in a holistic pedagogical approach 
that did not separate culture and practical 
experience from knowledge and community 
well-being, both for the present and the future. The 
Christian missionary system, in an effort to create 
and maintain social hierarchies, enforced 
categories and levels of learning that were valued 
differently, differentiating between disciplines and 
between formal, informal and non-formal learning. 
 
 
 



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formal, informal and non-
formal education 

Ngaka et. al (2012) suggest that informal 
community-engaged learning should be 
foundational to the development of a formal school 
curriculum, because such informal learning 
indicates what is immediately relevant to the lived 
realities of the communities that should be served 
by these education systems. Informal learning is 
needs-driven, based on the interests and values of 
the community, and its development should 
naturally support non-formal and formal education 
(Blaak, Openjuru & Zeelen, 2013). For education to 
support individuals and communities in 
meaningful ways, there must be a natural 
connection between indigenous ways of knowing 
and living in the world and formal school curricula. 
In this way, art, which tends to exist as a cultural 
practice of the community, will find authoritative 
recognition in the formal school system including 
vocational education. For example, Achebe & 
Msiska (2008) note that the performance of 
traditional wrestling was revered among the Igbo 

people of Nigeria and the best wrestler was a 
respected figure. Yet such traditional entertainment 
is not recognized under the formal school system 
and therefore it has no educational value within the 

formal school system. However, practitioners of 
this traditional wrestling would still go on to learn 
and become wrestlers through the informal 
Indigenous education system which is still being 
used to transfer cultural and traditional practices 
with community, important values for the next 
generations in Africa.  In Uganda, Monk et al. 
(2020) worked with young informal artists in the 
community who had left school because it was not 
meeting their needs. A component of the research 
was to host an art-based intervention with schools, 
family and community to communicate why the 
arts and arts pathways are needed in primary and 
secondary schools. The intervention was an 
attempt to merge indigenous learning approaches 
in the arts into formal curricula. 
 

need for valuing vocational 
education and training (vet) 
for individuals and community 
wellbeing 

VET Africa 4.0 Research Collective (VETA4, 2021; 
VET Africa 4.0, forthcoming; McGrath et. al 2020) 
calls for a transformative approach to education 
that tackles the negative effects that have arisen 
from the mass production model of schooling while 
re-insisting that education is simultaneously a 
human right and a means towards personal and 
societal development.

The government of Uganda has placed 
considerable emphasis in their Vision 2040 
(National Planning Authority, 2013) on Vocational 
Education and Training (VET) as a means to 
address the high unemployment rate and high 
early school leaving rate. There is an emphasis on 
the need to develop an entrepreneurial mindset 
and critical thinking because the economy does not 
have enough formal employment opportunities. 
Muhangi, Monk, and Adrupio (2022) argue that 
the ongoing environmental crisis and consequent 

For education to support 
individuals and communities 

in meaningful ways, there must be a 
natural connection between indigenous 

ways of knowing and living in the world 
and formal school curricula. In this way, art, 

which tends to exist as a cultural practice of 
the community, will find authoritative recog-
nition in the formal school system including 
vocational education.



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climate changes add urgency to the need for 
innovative, adaptive and creative thinkers. VET 
Africa 4.0 Collective (forthcoming) describe in 
detail the dynamic nature of informal learning 
which is taking place in Gulu and Eastern Cape 
(South Africa) as youth develop networks to seek 
out the learning they need to meet their livelihood 
aspirations, in spite of antiquated formal systems 
that are largely not equipped nor flexible enough to 
meet their needs. 

One of the dynamic components of informal 
learning that we uncovered in our research, 
which was glaringly absent from formal VET, 
is the presence of arts both as potential career 
pathways and as a means for learning and sharing 
knowledge.  In this paper, we argue that including 
arts in education is integral to the transformed 
approach to learning and livelihoods needed for 
dynamic communities capable of adapting and 
flourishing. Based on the premise of developing 
entrepreneurs and critical/creative thinkers, 
we argue that arts are essential even from the 
pragmatic, neoliberal and technical perspectives 
of economic development. Following from this, we 
argue that by not including arts in programming, 
formal and non-formal (vocational) education is a 
process which provides inadequate education and 
then conveniently blames youth for not succeeding, 
despite being “trained.” This is especially obvious 
for traditional trades such as carpentry, welding, 
and fashion design. Indigenous ways of learning 
and teaching in Uganda integrate dancing, 
storytelling and problem-solving skills. Indeed, 
storytelling, and riddles were a fundamental skill 
aspired to and valued as wisdom in leaders and 
elders. If the Ugandan government is serious 
about transforming livelihoods through VET, 
then it must return to learning approaches like 
Indigenous pedagogies that include the arts in 
learning processes in order to engage and develop 
communities.

The second component that we argue is missing in 
VET programs is art as a potential career pathway. 
The Independent, a newspaper in Uganda (2021), 
recognized that the “government of Uganda 
isn’t known for taking art seriously let alone 

appreciating its role in the economic, social and 
spiritual development of its people.” Our research 
demonstrated that pre-colonization craftsmanship 
such as metallurgy, carpentry, weaving, and pottery 
for developing tools and household items, as well 
as tattoos, bead making, make up, and music 
for aesthetics and entertainment was an integral 
career in society (Okelo, 2020). Craftspeople 
created important innovations that supported 
flourishing and healthy communities, which are no 
longer legitimized by formal education or training, 
but are much needed in educational offerings for 
Ugandan youth. 
 

learning the arts and the 
art of learning community 
development 
In Uganda, art training is an area of knowledge 
operated mainly by informal practices, in which 
novice artists learn from a more experienced artist 
or from self-discovery and explorations of their 
own talents and networks (The Independent, 
2021). Most artists learn either through 
Indigenous communities and/or from their parents 

  Craftspeople created 
important innovations that 

supported flourishing and healthy 
communities, which are no longer legiti-

mized by formal education or training, but 
are much needed in educational offerings 
for Ugandan youth."

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and just by existing in their communities as well as 
their participation in theater or music groups for 
dancing, singing and acting. Artists often struggle 
on their own supporting their private exhibition 
or self-promotion on the streets. Although some 
universities in Uganda provide formal education 
in fine arts, music, dance and drama (Beddie 
& Halliday-Wynes, 2010), such types of formal 
programs are still very limited and are not available 
in Gulu. For instance, Makerere University's School 
of Liberal Arts is the only school in Uganda with 
an academic program offering a diploma in music, 
dance, and drama. It provides such professional 
opportunities whereas African Indigenous 
Education often unfolds around campfire, 
storytelling, riddle solving, poetry singing and 
dancing in the homestead – engaging community 
to retain their culture and develop for the future.

 

methodology: vocational 
education training (vet) 
africa 4.0 (gulu case) 

We broadly describe in our methodology section 
the larger three-year research project with four 
case studies, two in South Africa and two in 
Uganda, funded by the British Academy and 
seeking to examine the potential of vocational 
learning in leading to decent life opportunities. In 
this article, however, we rely only on the Gulu case 
for this article, where we worked closely with core 
stakeholders in an iterative process of community 
based participatory action research (Monk et al., 
2021). Tandon et. al. (2016) explain that 
community-based research is messy because it 
values the life experiences and knowledge of the 
participants. Working closely with the community 
requires living in the chaos and complexity of 
everyday life and negotiating the research path as it 
emerges. The Gulu case was particularly complex 
because of the large degree of informality in 

learning and working and living in Gulu. We 
therefore pursued several different research areas 
with different stakeholders, as issues were 
identified by different stakeholders. Lotz-Sisitka 
(2004) has written about this chaos in her work 
with community learning networks in South Africa. 
The participatory process entangles data collection 
with data analysis because of the attempts to 
engage in and offer solutions to the pressing issues 
identified by community and with community. The 
research is based in ongoing relationships of action 
and reflection, and blurs the traditional lines of 
researcher as academic and participant as non-
academic. The goal is to have an interested 
community of practice come together and solve 
community issues as they emerge, which we 
describe in the following sections. In Gulu, a core 
aim of our research was to bring together networks 
of people and organizations interested in 
vocational learning for decent work.  
 
We first engaged in a stakeholder mapping process, 
which brought together a broad range of 
stakeholders in a day-long forum to discuss issues 
in vocational education and training and identified 
who we should speak with. Data was then collected 
using open ended interviews, focus groups and 
youth-led community dialogues, and radio talk 
shows. Stakeholders from various fields, including 
local government, university, NGOs, union for 
people with disabilities, instructors, and the private 
sector, formed an advisory committee to guide the 
research. As researchers we also engaged with 
many of the stakeholders in their programs in 
teaching and advisory roles. Much of the research 
we did resulted in further research. For example, 
speaking with youth involved in agriculture, we 
learned of a rich informal set of learning networks 
using social media, so we engaged in a mini case 
study with them and the rise of backyard farming 
during COVID-19. This in turn led us to speak with 
(vulnerable) food vendors selling their agricultural 



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produce on the streets and in the multitude of 
outdoor markets where most people are buying 
their food. Speaking with farmers brought out an 
issue of having to face notorious middlemen who 
purchase their produce at low prices and resell it. 
Middlemen felt that farmers were missing quality 
in their programs. So we brought together 
middlemen, farmers, extension officers (tasked 
with agriculture outreach), and university lecturers 
in agriculture in a forum to discuss the issue of 
quality produce and fair prices. We give this 
example to help understand the iterative process 
and many dimensions of the research. This forum 
was an intervention and analysis of the current 
data, together with the related stakeholders. It was 
also a forum for us to collect more data, and lead us 
spiraling into speaking with other government 
officials and a herbal medicine program based in 
preserving biodiversity and encouraging 
environmentally friendly agriculture practices. 
Another dynamic of the research was engaging in 
two pilot projects with related stakeholders to try 
out the potential of virtual reality and 
environmental incubation centers. In each of these 
we brought together stakeholders repeatedly to 
design and test and carry out the pilot. The process 
was therefore data collection because we were 
documenting it. However, it could also be 
conceived of as analysis because it involved the 
ongoing collective analysis of the pilot team. Or it 
could be conceived of as dissemination because the 
pilots themselves were an outcome in that we were 
acting on the previous learning. The pilots came at 
the very end of the research funding and actually 
extended beyond the funding. 
 
As we started to make connections and form a 
picture of the vast learning ecosystem, we also 
began to trace pathways of learning by youth as 
they followed their aspirations. To do this, we 
developed a “lifegrid” chart, which we used to plot 
transitions, choices (and the related causes) made 

by youth. One of the areas that emerged for us, and 
which we pursued as a pathway, was the broad 
category of arts and decent work. Decent work is an 
elusive and subjective term- and one of the core 
questions of the research. This was because we 
noticed that a) many youth were pursuing art 
careers as a side pathway, and b) there was a large 
movement of creative ways to recycle waste in 
tailoring for making earrings, bags, couch 
coverings, which extended to a whole network of 
youth in the arts. To generalize loosely here, the 
youth (who led a community intervention as a 
component of this research specifically on this 
topic) felt decent work was a livelihood that offered 
economic security so that they could feed their 
families and send their children to school, personal 
safety, something they valued and which was 
valued by society. 
 

interviews 

We recorded a total of 55 general interviews (17 
women, 38 men), 26 additional interviews 
accompanied by a lifegrid which focused on 
pathways in arts, tailoring, and farming (19 
women, 7 men) and 13 focus group discussions 
with a total of 28 females and 46 males.  We asked 
participants to share their stories, probed deeper 
around different aspects of VET, and asked them 
what needed to be done to improve VET from their 
perspective, and how we could use this research 
process as an intervention to improve VET. 
 

radio talk shows 

In addition, we asked youth to lead community 
radio shows as a method of collecting data during 
COVID-19. We invited two or three different youth 
involved in VET in various capacities to host 9 
radio shows on a weekly basis (12 women, and 11 
men). We brought together youth involved in 
vocational education and training, all from the 
informal and non-formal sphere. The radio 

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program host was himself a youth and DJ learning 
informally the art of radio. The youth shared their 
experiences related to VET and decent work on air 
to inspire youth, to provide ideas and knowledge 
about available programs and opportunities and 
about the intersections of living and learning. The 
show became oriented towards the arts and 
community development through the direction of 
the youth. For example, three youth who we invited 
to speak about informal agriculture in one of the 
early weeks discovered that one of them was an 
aspiring musician (off air), the other two then 
thought the topic of the radio program was arts, 
and proceeded to share their own experiences 
working in the arts. Future programs were 
designed explicitly to discuss the potential of art 
and the potential of decent work. The radio shows 
were recorded and shared with us by the radio 
station. The two or three youth who shared their 
experiences each week signed consent forms and 
participated in short recorded reflection sessions 
about the show. The public who called into the 
show were informed that the show was 
contributing towards research – however, most of 
them did not reveal their identity. The data 
collection was also a process of analysis in that the 
discussants and people calling in were engaged in a 
reflexive analysis of the arts. The reflections 
following the radio shows added another layer to 
the analysis process. Finally, after COVID-19 
lockdown restrictions were eased, participants 
were asked to participate (a number of them were 
organizers and panelists) in a day workshop about 
youth livelihoods and decent work. Based on their 
participation in the research they both decided to 
orient the workshop towards opportunities in arts, 
and used arts-based methods of facilitation to 
engage in reflexive discourse and analysis about 
decent work. 
 
 

findings 

It was this community engaged approach to the 
research that enabled a deeper understanding of 
the dynamic informal social skills learning 
ecosystem, and in particular the potentiality of 
flourishing livelihoods of the vibrant arts 
community. The process entangles the often-
isolated components and participants of 
traditional research processes as it engages in 
ongoing cycles of learning and action. As we have 
discussed above, the data collection, analysis, and 
dissemination are all interconnected and form the 
basis for the next questions and interventions. 
This journal article is but one way that we are 
sharing the discussion, it is also part of the 
research and hopefully it will also inspire new 
reflections, iterations and relationships.

In the following section we document the 
emergent challenges and potentials identified by 
youth in arts in Gulu. 
 

pathways to artists 
developing their skills and 
talents 

Despite many artists creating spaces to exhibit 
their work, Uganda society and policy does 
not tend to support artists or see their work as 
‘legitimate’ employment, as evidenced in the 
lack of support for the arts (The Independent, 
2021). Thus artists of all kinds remain largely 
working in the informal sector, hustling to get by. 
A musician, for example, will create a space to sell 
their music but they will also have to sell other 
artifacts such as clothing.  We saw this as the case 
with most artists we spoke with: They are often 
pursuing arts as either a part time job, or they are 
pursuing multiple arts-based endeavors without 
a great deal of sustainability or security. Most saw 
it as pursuing their passion, and were looking to 
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Learning of the arts in non-formal spaces follows 
diverse pathways, with the potential artists 
identifying an interest or talent and then learning 
from mentors, community members and practice. 

Upcoming artists become inspired when they 
join spaces where the arts are being created; they 
desire to join artistic communities and belong 
to the community. As one artist who aspired 
to filmmaking commented, “A certain group of 
filmmakers originated from Kenya but in Uganda 
their member was [name]. They came to our 
school and briefed us about film as an art and 
I picked interest in it.”  The learning processes 
for these artists follow different routes, mainly 
through community spaces where a professional 
or an employer has a makeshift school or they 
learn from someone already doing the art.

Despite the many informal spaces of learning 
the arts, professional spaces that train some of 
these arts with basic skill and offer credentialing 
are limited; this requires the budding artist to 
search for more learning or for employers to 
create spaces that upskill creativity not taught 
in the formal settings or vocational spaces. As 
one fashion design employer commented, “I 
think what inspired me, like I said I have two 
branches, I have a factory and I have a school. 

What inspired me to open the school was me 
coming to the realization that the tailoring schools 
that were around Gulu were not giving the key 
or relevant information to the people they were 
training. I know they were doing their best but at 
the end of the day when you look at the quality 
of the education the girls were getting, to me 
it wasn’t something sufficient enough because 
when you look at building a career in tailoring, 
you are probably thinking that this is what I am 
going to do for the rest of my life and you need 
quality education to do that. So what inspired me 
most to start a school is being able to provide the 
right type of skills and knowledge to the people 
pursuing their careers in this field.”

For this type of arts learning, the learning is 
usually done through training from a friend or a 
person within the community that is doing that 
art in particular, a type of informal apprenticeship 
where there is a lack of learning spaces for 
particular types of arts learning in formal spaces. 
A craft creator noted, "I just saw it and I got 
interested in learning it. She was a neighbor of 
mine. So I just went to see her in the next door. 
Then I found her doing the things so I asked her 
to show me how to do it then I just did it."

Despite the perception that most art is based on 
talent, many fine arts are trainable and they can 
be improved through a setting that encourages the 
learners’ growth in a variety of ways. However, 
often fledgling artists are pressured or pushed 
into formal education and to view their arts 
practices as merely a hobby or entertainment. 
One artist shared "I would say my own solo music 
career began this year but I've been a songwriter 
for quite a while. I feel that while I was in school I 
couldn't balance the two, that is to say [if] I leave 
school and focus on my musical career that is like 
shooting two birds with one stone so I feel like I 
should first concentrate in my school. So now that 

Despite the perception that 
most art is based on talent, 

many fine arts are trainable and 
they can be improved through a setting 

that encourages the learners’ growth in 
a variety of ways. However, often fledgling 

artists are pressured or pushed into formal 
education and to view their arts practices as 
merely a hobby or entertainment.

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I finished high school successfully and especially 
during my vacation I began my musical career as 
well."

The lack of societal valuing of diverse forms 
of artistic work causes individuals to put their 
artistic learning on the back burner while they 
pursue formal education or to eschew formal 
education and hope that the informal route for 
learning arts will eventually lead to employment 
in their chosen field. Unfortunately, that happens 
all too infrequently. 
 

unemployment and informal 
training in the arts 

One of the major constraining factors in the arts 
is that it is not considered legitimate employment. 
Many of the artists interviewed complained that 
they did not get support from their families and 

social communities as they attempted to develop 
their arts skills, despite their passion, desire, and 
talent. Often these artists depend on tourism to 
sell their work, as one responded explained, “Fine 
art thing is really not something that is stable 
especially right now during Covid Corona thing 
like the shop is closed at the moment and we do 
not have a market because most of our customers 
always come from outside the country.”, However, 
this is not highly lucrative as it is not promoted 
by the local communities and is often unnoticed. 

Additionally, copyright laws in Uganda are loosely 
written, implemented and enforced, so artists are 
not protected when their work is infringed upon. 

Unemployment is one of the reasons that 
individuals enter informal training in the arts 
pathway. Getting into the arts was something 
participants expressed as a part-time position 
that would end as soon they got a ‘real job.’ But as 
soon as the benefits in the arts were noticed most 
decided that was what they wanted to do full time, 
despite being discouraged by their families and 
the communities at large. 

There is considerably more government support 
for science-based learning so the arts are ignored 
and underfunded, and there is no clear pathway 
to formal higher learning (Okello, 2016; Monk et. 
al. 2020). Some of these young artists maintain 
their passion and quietly but defiantly continue 
to pursue their arts learning, despite low or 
nonexistent income and limited options for future 
employment in these areas. As one young artist 
who had been compelled to attend university 
by his family rather than pursue his passion for 
singing said, “Okay from my family they don't 
know quite a lot yet since I am an upcoming artist. 
I would say my ideas that I have produced I've 
only come out this year and from home mostly, 
they do not know that I'm a musician. They just 
hear those rumors from other people. When they 
ask me I tell them I don't know I am fine with 
everything that I’m Doing. We will see if I'm a 
serious artist or not and if I am not I will stop.” 
 

income generation 

The hopeful defiance described above is not 
possible for every artist. Some learn the arts as 
a way to earn an income as a job; formal (white 
collar) jobs are highly sought after but not often 
attained. Academic credentialing for the arts is, 
however, very difficult to realize in Uganda. A 

 Some of these young art-
ists maintain their passion and 

quietly but defiantly continue to pursue 
their arts learning, despite low or non-ex-

istent income and limited options for future 
employment in these areas.



26ENGAGE!  |  c r e at i v e  a rts

parent who was interviewed in the youth-led radio 
show commented: “For the youths and those that 
failed to study, if possible, they have to find a way. 
And as I speak I am so proud that I have children 
who have graduated from the Gulu University 
who found hardship in obtaining a job, but now 
have come to volunteer and learn handwork. That 
is talking about that’s why I am proud now.

Because some youth have dropped out of 
school they feel the only way they could support 
themselves is by learning an art skill informally 
for sustainability. This usually happens in 
the limited vocational education spaces or 
in makeshift schools that are created in the 
community by those that wish to train others in 
a particular skill. For example, one participant 
shared, “I didn’t complete my education. I want 
to sustain life. Used to make my own dresses and 
so not wasting money on having to buy dresses. 
Mother suggested fashion design. Mother paid 
fees.” 
 
There are little or no formal qualification 
requirements needed to do training in the arts; 
the most important thing that most areas of 
training require is your ability to read and write. 
As one fashion designer stated:” The qualification 
requirement for the school is that you will just 
have to know how to read and write. And we 
have two programs, there are fashion and design 
entrepreneurship programs that takes place daily 
during the week.”

Literacy is required because most training centers 
have an element of entrepreneurship training 
that requires such skills to enable them to make 
an income in the art form, however this is for 
those art forms that are trained in the informal 
or formal spaces like fashion and design: “I lead 
the fashion house, making clothes with tailors 
who have come to train. Some of them had 

trained with different schools but have come to 
continue learning while having the job experience, 
and also taking other people who want to do 
apprenticeship with us or people who have 
already trained with other schools but would like 
to get more guidance on how to start earning from 
tailoring.”

Some people working in the arts see an 
opportunity to do recycling and environmental 
waste management by turning waste into art 
and making an income out of it. Their creativity 
enables them to see the possibility of training 
others and also measuring environmental 
protection. An environmental artist noted, “We 
have seen, so if we keep on converting waste to 
become something good which makes something 
you would have thrown becomes something good.
Because if I make I can sell at 30,000 shillings 
from the t-shirt that you would have thrown, so 
I get many out of it.  I also make earrings from 
kitenge that are in small pieces so I change them 
to earrings and those pieces of kitenge and other 
cloths I can convert them into flowers and sell 
them. And if they take long and get old I think of 
something else to make out of that is good.” 
 
These ideas can be a source of earning or income 
generation. Another entrepreneurial artist saw the 
opportunity from unwanted cloth: “My cousins 
at home would still undermine [my ideas], saying 
‘tailor tomorrow you should sew my cloth. So I 
would just laugh at them and sometimes they 
would bring me their pillow cases to make so it 
was not easy for me because also my fellow youths 
from my former school would gossip about me 
that I have nothing just doing tailoring. But I 
didn’t give up. So when my sister saw that she 
bought me materials and from there I started 
making clothes and putting them on display.”

 

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Despite the ability to earn an income, some in the 
arts don't find it enough to sustain their livelihood 
and usually need something like a second job or 
a career of sorts to fund or walk side in side with 
their art, as one filmmaker described, “First of all, 
it got me where I am at the moment. Right now 
I'm working with [the restaurant] Elephante and 
it's helping me put food on my table. So the only 
thing is just if I get maybe other sources then I 
need to expand and do other things in support of 
what I am doing.”

The artists are often faced with the challenge of 
having a product that people most don’t want to 
purchase, or purchase at a price they demand 
without consideration of the hard work input 
by the artist. Particularly during the pandemic 
people are not interested in purchasing works 
of art and, as one artist commented, they are 
struggling to support themselves with basic needs: 
“Fine art is really not something that is stable, 
especially right now during Covid, Corona. Things 
like the shop is closed at the moment and we do 
not have a market because most of our customers 
always come from outside the country. And even 
when you are to do it right now nobody will buy 
you things and you'll end up selling your things 
cheaply or giving your things as a free gift.”

In the above findings, youth have told us that 
with greater integration of the arts, and greater 
support in developing career trajectories and 
professional arts as a sector, there is enormous 
potential for livelihoods. Integrating arts formally 
as a sector in the economy and strengthening 
arts for the development of better craftsmanship, 
innovation and generally more cohesive and 
healthy communities is vital. The recognition 
and development of the power of the arts in 
vocational education training naturally supports 
both non-formal and formal education in local 
communities, regionally and nationally. 

discussion 

Based on the stories collected during the research, 
we suggest that if multiple arts pathways to 
vocational education training are to be recognized, 
there needs to be diverse ways to provide evidence 
of skill, capacity, and talent. Rather than only 
relying on formal qualifications (i.e., certificates) 
as evidence of skill and talent, employers need 
to recognize the demonstration and application 
of skills and talents. As the participants noted, 
it is their skill and demonstrable capabilities 
that enables them to succeed, not necessarily 
formal education. Access into post-secondary 
institutions, as well as recognition that formal 
learning is not as meaningful as non-formal 
learning and apprenticeship, reveals the need for 
changing perceptions and values of diverse ways 
of gaining expertise.

There are many opportunities for the arts to 
flourish in vocational learning programs. We have 
documented here some of the challenges, mostly 
related to absence of formal art programs and 
in relation to negative perceptions of the arts. In 
our broader research data examining vocational 
education and training in Gulu, we found that 
many stakeholders and employers felt that quality 
workers in vocational fields were not there, and 
we found an associated stigma and resulting 
poor working conditions for the vocational field 
(VET Africa 4.0 Collective, forthcoming). Here we 
would like to posit that inclusion of arts in formal 
VET programs could bring an element of pride 
and professionalism and quality craftsmanship 
to vocational programs and to the labor market 
recognizing, for example, the difference between 
tailoring programs and fashion design programs.

Also, integrating arts learning into VET programs 
can lead to environmental practices and niche 
markets for vocations. We see in the informal 
spaces a large recycling movement with artists 



ENGAGE!  |  c r e at i v e  a rts 28

both saving money on materials, and finding new 
uses for the materials. This would be practical 
for welders or carpenters as well, both from an 
economic perspective and from a much-needed 
environmental perspective. Similarly, finding 
solutions to the environmental crisis provides a 
burgeoning business opportunity which could be 
led by vocational learning programs.

Beyond creativity, integrating arts also emerged as 
an important coping and flourishing mechanism. 
Promoting self-expression is seen as a form of 
self-empowerment and coping with trauma. This 
is particularly relevant for northern Uganda, 
which is recovering from 30 years of civil war, and 
has high dropout rates from school, and low levels 
of employment. 

Finally, and more directly discussed in this article, 
we demonstrate that there is a vibrant space in 
the informal sector of arts that, if supported, 
could become translated into important and much 
needed sectors in society. Pathways for digital 
arts such as marketing, website design, movies 
and entertainment industry, music, and dance, 
tourism and crafts are all important potential 
sectors that could be built and invested in more 
formal and professional learning programs and 
pathways. 
 

conclusion 

The arts were traditionally included in the holistic 
precolonial learning programs. Dance and 
storytelling were important forms of learning, 
and design thinking was promoted in experiential 
programs where craftsmanship such as pottery 
and blacksmithing and jewelry-making were 
highly valued. Unfortunately, along with these 
vibrant learning programs, the arts have been 
sidelined in industrial and neoliberal market-
based education. Bringing the arts back into 
learning programs, both as a pathway and as 

a method of instruction, will be an essential 
component of dealing with unemployment and 
the significant additional life challenges caused 
by the environmental crisis. While this is true of 
broader learning programs, we highlight the arts 
here in the vocational sector and point out the 
very practical applications and opportunities. As 
the government increasingly invests in vocational 
learning and self-employment, we see the cost of 
not including arts as being too high to ignore.

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