Brig.-Gen. Johnson Olawumi, Director-General, National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), on Monday called on private, public institutions and individuals to stop sending requests for concessional posting of prospective corps members.
The director-general said the scheme would no longer entertain or grant such requests as the online registration platform introduced by it had been designed to address the problem.
Olawumi said this at the opening ceremony of a two weeks skill acquisition training programme in Building Technology for corps members at the NYSC Permanent Orientation Camp in Abuja.
The programme is organised by the scheme in collaboration with the Housing Developers Institute (HDI) for over 200 corps members drawn from different states of the federation.
``The scheme has for the past few weeks received various requests from MDAs of government, private institutions and individuals seeking concessional posting.
``They are just wasting their time; we are not going to do any concessional posting for anybody. This country belongs to everybody so corps members should be able to serve anywhere we deploy them.
``If we concede to this it will be killing the objective by which the scheme was established which is national integration," he said.
Olawumi said that the scheme had in the past allowed concessional postings for prospective corps members who had medical problems, pregnant women and nursing mothers.
``All those who have these challenges what they need to do is in the process of doing the online registration they should upload necessary documents and information to the portal and it will automatically post them.
``These persons will automatically be posted to either the location where they are receiving treatment or where their parents reside. Pregnant and nursing mothers will be automatically posted to where their spouses reside," he said.
The director-general said the scheme had chosen the housing sector as a key component of its skill acquisition training for corps members to address youth unemployment.
He said that it was also to address the increasing housing deficit which had reduced the capacity of employers to absorb more corps members.
He said that through the course of empowering the youths through the vocational training the nation gained in areas of trained labour force and improved output quality.
The director-general said that the HDI was collaborating with the scheme to address the problem of insufficient manpower in the sector by providing technical knowledge with funding from the World Bank.
``The commitment of the NYSC to skills acquisition and entrepreneurship development (SAED) is limitless since its establishment in 2012.
``In implementing this important aspect of the schemes structure, monumental achievements have been recorded.
``To consolidate on these successes the orientation time table has been adjusted to include skills acquisition in more than 25 units of trade specialisation.
``This include shoe making, fashion designing, cosmetology, food processing, animal husbandry, repair of electronic devices, mechanical works and a host of others," Olawumi said.
While urging the trainees to show focus and zeal in the training, the director-general reaffirmed the scheme’s pledge to continue to give useful skills to every willing graduate partaking in the national service.
He said that the Ventures Management Department of the scheme through public private partnership was concluding arrangements to provide a bottle water factory and bakery in the camp.
According to Olawumi, the aim is to teach corps members and also produce bread and hygienic water which is highly consumed during and after orientation periods.
He said that the concept would be extended to all the six geo-political zones of the country in order to give more corps members the opportunity to train during their service year.
Mrs Rabiu Jimeta, the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Youth Development, said the training would equip the youths with necessary skills to address their challenge.
Jimeta said the corps members undergoing the training did not have prior educational background in the field calling on them to take the training sessions seriously.
Earlier, Mrs Mary Danabia, the Director of SAED, NYSC, said a total of eight different skills would be taught to corps members during the two weeks training.
She said they included: electrical installation, plumbing, welding, fabrication and alluminium, tiling, painting, plaster of Paris, bricklaying and interlocking tiles, carpentry and joinery.
Danabia said the programme was put in place by the scheme and HDI to build the capacity of corps members to improve the standard of houses being produced.
According to the director, the Housing Development Cooperative Society (HDCS) will absorb the corps members trained to work in their project site nationwide.
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