The current paradigm shift toward promoting education for skills and sustainable development gravitates toward alternative teaching and learning approaches in vocational education and training (VET) in Africa. It is argued that solutions to problems that currently plague the formal VET systems in the continent with reference to Uganda must proceed from understanding of local capacities. Such include the role of Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) in promoting sustainable development. This can be achieved by integrating IKS into the formal VET system to address some of the knowledge deficiencies in the VET system that, in Uganda, is currently practiced according to educational paradigms acquired from Western Europe in the wake of colonialism. This paper explores the possibilities IKS have to offer to the formal VET systems in Africa, specifically in Uganda, and within my own field of art and industrial design. It discusses by relating the current training gaps in the formal VET systems with the possibilities the indigenous knowledge systems offer. The paper concludes by highlighting that, formal VET curricula ought to constitute some design elements from the indigenous knowledge systems. Specifically, the elements should relate to policy and goals formulation, content and delivery strategies, organization of learning and the evaluation criteria. It also recognizes the fact that there are other challenges in the current VET systems that affect the implementation of education programs in Africa.