UPDF Cadet Recruitment

The ranks
For basic military training, where recruits are passed out as privates, the lowest rank in the army, the requirements are lower compared to those of cadet officers, where one graduates as second lieutenant, the lowest rank of commissioned officers.

Commissioned officers manage, command units and according to the British system, adopted by Uganda during colonialism, they wear pips on the shoulders with red gorgets on the collars. They range from second lieutenant to general while non-commissioned officers wear them on the lower and the upper part of the arm.
Lt Col Ankunda says for cadets, the minimum academic requirement is Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UACE), while for recruits, it is the Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE).

This year however, the emphasis was put on those who studied science subjects. “We wanted those who can easily be trained to fly planes and operate computerised weapons,” he says.

The most important requirement for anyone to be recruited in the army is they must be nationals. “He must be a Ugandan of good character,” Lt Col Ankunda adds, “They must be known in the villages where they stay and must come with letters of introduction from the LCI to the LCIII. We don’t want to recruit chicken thieves.”
Unlike in the previous recruitments where recruits only needed one letter from the LCI, the recent one was more bureaucratic. The recruits were this time required to add a letter from the LCIII. This was intended to weed out people who forge LCI letters and manage to get recruited.

The army spokesperson says the more bureaucratic process helped them reduce forged letters from local governments. “This worked well for us. It was used because of the lessons learnt from previous recruitments. There were many forgeries.” One recruitment officer, who did not want to be named, said, “If one goes through that chain, there is smaller probability of having forgeries.”

UPDF Cadet Recruitment : The process
Weeks before the recruitment started, the army makes announcements through the media, throughout the country on the quality of people they want and they also caution all local leaders to be careful while making recommendations.
In the past, university graduates would join as recruits, but these days the army recruits them for the cadet course because experience has shown that if they join as riflemen, they naturally demand promotions. They are eventually taken for either cadet or Young Officers’ course so that they become officers.

Every district is given a quota depending on its population. Kampala District which has the biggest population in the country had the highest number of recruits. There are some districts which failed to raise the required number of recruits. But this is covered by the districts with a higher quota.

Upon the end of training, these recruits will be foot soldiers who will be deployed in the jungles in Central African Republic or Somalia to fight the enemy.

Currently, the 3,000 that were recruited are undergoing drills. They will spend nine months being initiated into military life. They are trained in field craft, skills at arms, tactics, marksmanship, political education and others.