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First class graduates to serve in varsities, says NYSC

By Saxone Akhaine, Northern Bureau Chief
22 July 2015   |   11:44 pm
PROSPECTIVE corps members with first class or distinction will henceforth be posted to the universities and other institutions of higher learning during their service years, the Director-General, National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Brig.-Gen. Johnson Olawumi, has said. Olawumi, who spoke while flagging off the 2015 Batch ‘B’ Pre-Orientation Workshop, also explained that the problems associated…

nysc-coppersPROSPECTIVE corps members with first class or distinction will henceforth be posted to the universities and other institutions of higher learning during their service years, the Director-General, National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Brig.-Gen. Johnson Olawumi, has said.

Olawumi, who spoke while flagging off the 2015 Batch ‘B’ Pre-Orientation Workshop, also explained that the problems associated with the wrong use of JAMB numbers would be addressed to reduce the stress encountered while correcting such.

More so, the Director of Corps Mobilisation, Anthony Ani, said the workshop would critically “look at the data entry used for the exercise for the Senate approved list, the list of approved Corps Producing Institutions (CPIs) and the list of accredited courses.”

The NYSC boss said the reforms aim at improving service delivery and efficiency, stressing that if fully implemented, the NYSC programme would go through a seamless process and add value to young graduates.

According to him, Nigerian universities have been banned from offering post-graduate admission to serving corps members, stating that such violates the NYSC Act and distracts their service programme.

At the workshop, tagged: “ICT and NYSC Mobilisation Process: Towards Eliminating Identified Challenges,” Olawumi further urged vice-chancellors to retain, after their NYSC programme, the corps members with first class or distinction that served in their institutions.

He pledged to introduce further innovations into the scheme, adding that the gains arising from the 2015 Batch ‘A’ workshop led to the full implementation of the use of ICT in registration of prospective corps members.

“The use of ICT in that regard eliminated registration by proxy, reduced costs, curbed avoidable accidents, fast-tracked the payment of corps members on relocation and made deployment and relocation easier and faster, among several other gains,” he disclosed.

Meanwhile, Ani explained that the present pre-mobilisation workshop would enable the NYSC to also critically resolve issues arising from poor data entry for Senate Approved List of prospective corps members.

“The workshop would equally review the list of approved CPIs and list of accredited courses of such institutions and resolve issues and identified discrepancies arising from the process.

“It would also revisit the problems associated with JAMB numbers, wrong entry of date of birth of prospective corps members and admissions into higher institutions, as well as issues of outright manipulation of data sent to the NYSC by the CPIs.”

Nevertheless, Kaduna State Governor, Nasir el-Rufai, represented by the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Youth and Sports, Ibrahim Balarabe Musa, stressed the need for positive re-orientation, noting that emphasis should be on the promotion of peace, harmony and progress among Nigerians, which the NYSC is assisting to actualise.

He applauded the decision to post first class graduate corps members to tertiary institutions, especially with the paucity of lecturers in such institutions, adding that the level of patriotism and sacrifices by those who helped to conduct national elections and census has elicited his administration’s support to the NYSC.

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