KAMPALA — Science students at the Jinja based Horizon international school were overjoyed after the exhibition of the home made, “Kayoola bus, ” on Thursday.
The diesel powered bus is part of the projects being undertaken by the Jinja based Kiira motors cooperation.
Kiira motors manufacturing plant is being constructed on a 100 acre piece of land in Mutai village in Jinja district and is expected to foster production of 22 buses daily.
Gracious Tumusiime, a student, says that such projects are instrumental in transforming the students’ mindsets, from targeting white collar jobs to more hands on skills enterprises. “This project is an eye opener to the education institutions to focus their classroom lessons on skilling learners with hands on skills other than the job seeking mentality which has increased the unemployment burden in the country, ” he says.
Ruth Namubiru, another student says that exposure to environmentally friendly automotives will promote the love of green energy among school going children. “Green energy is the only way of ensuring sustainable clean air spaces for all of us, therefore, if all school going children out there are exposed to less environment polluting vehicles, we can surely protect the surviving natural resources for the future generations, and also control the spread of illnesses which result from poor quality air inhalation challenge,” she says.
Allan Muhumuza, the director of marketing at the Kiira motors cooperation says that, they have designed school outreach programs with an aim of exposing learners to home grown technologies, so as to inspire them to invent new projects from locally sourced materials. “Our journey as Kiira motors was birthed from the biggest learning institution in the country, Makerere university, therefore our continued school outreaches are aimed at inspiring the learners to equally invest more of their energy in innovation of new products in the market,” he says.
Muhumuza stresses that, they target to inspire learners to exploit their various abilities in solving community challenges which will in turn enable them to earn sustainable employment opportunities for themselves. “Kayola bus was created to control the transport challenges where both urban dwellers and long distance travelers lacked the required comfort enroute to the different destinations, therefore, we are rallying students to explore the available community challenges with suitable solutions that can earn them sustainable employment opportunities,” he says.
Meanwhile, Lokman Cinar, the principal of Horizon international school says that, exposing students to successful projects made by Ugandan based engineers, is resourceful in encouraging them to undertake science subjects, as they have physical testimonies on the rewards from undertaking such a path in their careers.
Lokman further relays that, tipping students on the relevance of balancing both technology advancement and environmental sensitivity will groom a generation of innovators who will agitate for the promotion of green energy.