By; AMOS TAUNA, Kaduna
The federal government has announced plans to reform the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) to make it a revenue-generating agency.
Jamila Bio-Ibrahim, the Minister of Youth Development, made the disclosure while speaking on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics programme.
The minister also explained that the Federal Government is working on reforming the NYSC scheme to reflect the present realities of the nation.
She further explained that they all understand that resources are dwindling, even oil revenues are not as they used to be, stressing that they would find innovative ways of ensuring that corps members’ welfare is well-taken care of.
When it comes to remuneration and looking totally at the holistic funding of the NYSC, she said that they have announced a reform of the NYSC scheme itself, pointing out that they want the scheme to go beyond the social programme of government to be that revenue-generating scheme and agency.
According to her, “The reforms which transform the NYSC into a revenue-generating agency and prepare the corps members for the job market and to be decently and gainfully employed or to be employers of labour through entrepreneurship and of course, perfect matching into primary assignment and all the support they need in that career path.”
She also disclosed that corps members were no longer posted to states deemed unsafe in the wake of worsening security conditions in the country.
As an immediate intervention of the government and the NYSC as an agency, she noted that they have actually stopped posting corps members to the very unsafe states, saying that they have been doing it, the government has been doing it in the past, as there are states they have not been posting corps members to to ensure their safety.
The minister explained that the security of corps members requires collaboration with other agencies of government, saying that when it comes to security matters, it is a multi-sectoral approach and so, it is not the NYSC alone and the ministry that is involved but they are working with security outlets to ensure corps members are safe.
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