THE Federal Government has initiated plans to review the existing National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) posting policy, with a view to addressing the perennial problem of under-utilization and rejection of corps members.
The Chairman, NYSC National Governing Board, Chief Gordon Bozimo, disclosed this at the weekend in Abuja during a courtesy call by the board on the Minister of Youth Development, Boni Haruna.
According to him: “There are some four areas that we have been mandated to limit our postings, but the realities on ground is that it cannot hold anymore and for us to expand to other sectors, we need approvals.
“We believe when graduates leave the university and go for employment, it is assumed that the one year service will be taken as one year working experience, but if you are posted to a place that was not relevant to your course of study, then it is difficult for employers of labour to accept you. To achieve that, we want to be able to post corps members to areas of their training as much as we can, so they can now benefit from that one year working experience.”
He noted that the board is committed to the general reform of the scheme in order to sustain and enhance its valuable contributions to national unity and development.
He underlined that the board has partnered banks in the area of critical intervention in skill acquisition and entrepreneurship training of corps members, stating that, “Specifically, the scheme signed an MoU with the Bank of Industry (BOI).”
He also stressed the need for massive upgrading of all NYSC camps nationwide to provide conducive environment for induction and training, appealing to the government for more funding to meet the increasing population of corps members and improve on their skills acquisition and entrepreneurship training.
Responding, the Minister of Youth Development, Boni Haruna, stated that the Federal Government was committed to sustaining the core principle of the scheme.
“Being a product of the scheme myself, I think the best we can do is to ensure that the principle on the basis of which it was established was sustained by us,” he stated.
Source: Guardian
