Twenty-five officials from the office of the parliamentary budget at the Parliament of Uganda have graduated with certificates in public speaking from Makerere University.
Participants were equipped with a number of skills including mastering their body language, eliminating verbal tics, preparing a speech and creating content from the speech.
Other areas included making a PowerPoint presentation, presenting a report, making an in-house presentation, speaking at a conference, delivering a presentation before the camera, addressing the un-expected, and sharpening their presentation skills.
The Public speaking short certificate course is offered by the Centre for Teaching and Learning Support (CTLS) under the College of Education and External Studies (CEES).
Dr Dorothy Ssebowa Kyagaba, the coordinator for CTLS, said the public speaking short course is one of the outreach programmes they offer to the public to ensure capacity building.
The training started last year with public speaking level I and ended this year with level II.
“The course helps participants to sharpen their skills in public speaking,” Dr Kyagaba said.
She revealed the need for this course to every individual is to give them high level presentation skills and also to give them confidence and analyse their audiences as they are giving their speeches.
The participants were awarded certificates on May 17, 2024 at an event officiated by Prof Edward Bbaale, the Directorate of Research and Graduate Training.
“Many times we are chosen upon to make speeches and we get nervous and anxious but when you take up this course, you give a high level speech,” Dr Kyagaba assured the public.
The training was more of learner centered where by participants were involved more into group engagements to enable them practice what they learnt.
Level I was more of an introductory part but level II they were doing a master of all the courses embedded in public speaking.
Centre for Training and Learning Support now plans to extend the training to all members of staff at Makerere University.
“Much as we are lecturers, we are not good at speaking in public. We hope this will help our staff to gain presentation skills,” Dr Kyagaba said.
She said CTLS conceived the idea in 2023 when they thought it was wise to train people in public speaking given the challenge they go through as they are speaking in public.
“Having realised that, we did a needs assessment and we came up with this concept of public speaking.”
Research was conducted from different institutions including the parliament, schools, teacher training institutions, and Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) among others.
The training started May 13 and ended May 17.
Hajji Sulaiman Kiggundu, the Director Parliamentary Budget Office, appreciated Makerere for the opportunity offered to his staff and expressed the need to train Makerere researchers how to disseminate their findings.
“Organise training for staff to learn how to write research reports, economic reports and others to enable them benefit from their research,” Hajji Kiggundu said.
He said scholars tend to keep their research findings in shelves.
Assoc. Prof Mathias Mulumba, the Dean School of Education, said training professionals in soft skills is pivotal in self growth.
“Self-education will help you realise your goals. These skills will help you to become better people. You will go back to your respective work places different,” Prof Mulumba said.
Prof Bbaale, the Directorate of Research and Graduate Training led the event of awarding participants their certificates.
He lauded the tutors in this training workshop and asked the Parliamentary Budget office for a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Makerere University to help them improve their skills.
“These skills you have acquired today will improve your staff in communication. I urge you to put what you have learnt into practice.”
