TotalEnergies scholarships to counter the challenge of finding enough skilled talent in a new oil sector

Since the beginning of its exploration activities in Uganda in 2012, Total E&P Uganda has offered local and international scholarships in order to empower local talent with skills required in the oil and gas industry.

Scholarships to Counter the challenge of unskilled human resources

The recent discovery of oil and gas in Uganda has presented a challenge of finding enough skilled human resources in the country. Consequently, we have availed local and international scholarships aimed at equipping local talent with necessary skills. While speaking at the official launch of the local scholarships in April 2013, Mr Robert, a Local Council V Chairman expressed his gratitude to TotalEnergies for such generosity and commended the company on what he said was the first scholarship programme in the districts’ history. “Oil is indeed a blessing and not a curse like it is alleged. I wish to commend Total on this historical milestone of sponsoring our children and caution all of you to study hard and excel so as not to mess up this opportunity for the future beneficiaries”, he said.

Developing local content and capacity building

TotalEnergies supports local content and capacity building in its various forms to include recruitment, integration, training, development and career assessment. We believe that the key to developing a sustainable expert workforce is by contributing to the development of the knowledge base of our host countries and more broadly, the growth of its human capital. 

Delivering on our commitment

Since the launch of the Oil & Gas scholarship, 9 beneficiaries have graduated with Masters from internationally recognised education institutions to include the French Petroleum Institute in France, Imperial College of London, the University of Aberdeen UK, and the Institute of Petroleum Studies Nigeria. To date, 40 scholars have been enrolled in the Ordinary Level local scholarship programme with the first candidates sitting their Uganda Certificate of Education exams in 2018. Similarly, to date, 120 scholars have been enrolled in the Advanced Level local scholarship programme, many of whom have excelled in their national exams hence becoming eligible to enrol for university education. We have also launched vocational training programmes for youth to support the national skilling initiative and additional only-girls scholarships aimed at improving girl child education.