TOP 5 WAYS TO IMPROVE THE NATIONAL YOUTH SERVICE CORPS

Service year has been described by many graduates as one of the most difficult days ( most especially if you were posted far away from your place of residence or not close to family and friends).
Indeed , many have relocated and sometimes , sought the services of ‘backyard agents’ to help them run away from such places .

Why would you blame them?

No one wants to suffer for a country that places little or no value on loyalty and service to fatherland .
Truth be told , this ‘ escapes’ and relocation has only bastardized the core objective of integration and promotion of national unity. No one is ready to go to some remote village in Benue or sokoto to serve and even the few that do go there , attach some psychological or spiritual importance.

So the question lies ; how can NYSC be improved to make people ready to stay at their state of deployment ?

1. Increase the monthly allowance: I am not ready to open up a bank of data on how civil servants earn in the country , but for someone to sacrifice the comfort of his home , job prospects and all other enjoyments to serve his fatherland , he needs some form of adequate compensation. How many youth Corpers have died in their service to the country and their families only recieve letters and all some documents that only speak long grammar on the need for loyalty to country ? Increase the monthly allowance and see people willing to take the risk to stay back .

2. Provide an adequate PLACE OF PRIMARY ASSIGNMENT (PPA) : I was privileged to round my state of deployment after being posted to a state organization that did not even need my services , only to find companies and businesses that were looking for a contract staff for the discipline I read . It brings the question :How is the posting done ?why would someone read information communication and be posted to a school to teach physics ? . At the end of the day , most of those graduates become fed up and ‘ ghost around’. Then most of these organizations pay nothing or next to nothing ... not even enough of a laborers weekly wage for a month ! . No job! No job! .

3. Revamp the SAED PROGRAM: I hold no barriers to say this , but SAED is an absolute scam ! You are teaching skills acquisition to people for 3 weeks and then you pick up their monthly allowance to gazump it .... and then you hold no pity to train them after the orientation ... you still demand huge sums of money ! I am not saying that there should be no sacrifice on our part but how do you expect people to learn a skill when they can only die of starvation before they come to work each morning.

4. STRINGENT RULES ON RELOCATION: Some corps members will hang me on a proverbial ‘ Golgotha’ for this but it is the truth : you do not expect people to be ready to serve their fatherland if there is also an easy way not to serve in sacrifice : some people just know that they would ‘ endure’ for three weeks and then go back to their place of comfort. If the government really wants to achieve something with this , the rules on relocation from one state or local government should be stringent , with relocation only possible in conflict zones.
5. FEES ! CHARGES ! : I need not speak so much on this . It is inversely related to the monthly allowance. Perhaps in a subsequent post , I would make a breakdown of how 19800 serves a corper in a remote village as compared to a town . When you fix Fees and charges on unnecessary projects and classes , there is every tendency that the service year only helps to remind us of acute corruption prevalent in our society. You expect me to get accommodation, transport , feeding , payment of fees and charges with 19800 naira ? It’s like the proverbial devils hand .... you give with right .... take with left ... no not left .... BOTH HANDS ! An improvement or reduction in charges and fees would help to reduce the rush for so many to relocate to a place of financial security where the burden of livelihood would not turn them to corporate beggars and destroying the image of the service .

Nice one OP.