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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 November 2008
The system of apprenticeship within the so-called informal sector in East and Central Africa is generally thought to be more limited than in West Africa, albeit less well documented. This note reports briefly some findings from Uganda, based on a survey covering 45 metal-working and 45 wood-working establishments in and around Kampala from June to August 1993. Selected on a more or less random basis, all 90 were in the ‘micro-enterprise’ category, employing less than to persons, with a mean size of 5·7 (metal) and 5·0 (wood). As regards the first trade, 25 of these establishments were located in Katwe, seven in Kisenyi, six in Bwaise, four in Nbeeda, and three in Nakawa. The sample of wood-working establishments was selected more widely from 16 different locations, the most from any one place being seven.
1 See, for example, Aryee, George A., ‘The Informal Manufacturing Sector in Kumasi’, in Sethuraman, S. V. (ed.), The Urban Informal Sector in Developing Countries: employment, poverty and environment (Geneva, ILO, 1981), pp. 90–100, for the findings of data collected from 298 small-scale enterprises during 1970–1. The aūthor refers to ‘the overwhelming importance of apprentices’, who accounted for 66 per cent of all persons engaged, 86 per cent excluding working proprietors, and outnumbered all others (journeymen and unpaid family workers) in a ratio exceeding 6 to 1. Generally they paid fees, receiving only a small amount of pocket money, food, and sometimes shelter, and represented a major source both of cheap labour and ‘finance for investment’.Google Scholar
2 By way of quantification, it should be emphasised that these findings are based on relatively small samples. To test for statistical significance using Chi-squared it is necessary to combine cells to avoid low frequencies: calculations based on three categories, P4 and below, P5–7, and S1–6, gave values of 5·97 for metal-working, 12·34 for wood-working, and 14·26 for the combined trades, the last two both significant at the 1% level and the first at the 5% level, just. Acknowledgements to I.J. Gillespie.