The Federal Government has been advised to improve the quality of the National Youth Service Corps scheme instead of extending the service year to two.
A cross section of corps members, parents and education stakeholders advised in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria in Ibadan on Saturday.
The respondents unanimously opposed the extension of the service year, describing it as a waste of time.
According to them, with relevant skills acquisition and start-up capital, participants will become self-reliant after their one-year national service.
A corps member, Andrew Chukwuma, said it was enough that graduates of public tertiary institutions had spent more years than necessary studying due to incessant strikes by various education unions.
According to him, the service year extension will also add to the challenges of getting jobs in companies with age limits set on job positions.
Similarly, a parent, Evelyn Falola, urged the government to consider some graduates who must first go for an internship before launching into their career.
She noted that the extension would be an additional burden for such graduates.
“We want the government to focus on empowering corps members right from the orientation camp.
“The government should also create an enabling environment that will encourage youths to be employers rather than job seekers,” Falola said.
Meanwhile, a policy analyst, Yemi Osanyin, reiterated the need for Nigeria to strengthen its education sector in terms of quality and employability of graduates rather than the extension.
Osanyin stated that by ensuring the quality of education, graduates would not need to depend on whatever the extension of service would offer, if ever there was any.
He noted that there were already some issues regarding the one-year service, making some parents sceptical about their wards’ participation.
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He said corps members’ posting to threatened and insecure places was enough concern to make parents and stakeholders object to the extension plan.
He wondered what the extension would address when some people were already calling for the scrapping of the scheme.
“Is it that value can only come after one year of NYSC or in two years, whereby one year should be used in their primary places of assignment and another year for the vocational skills?
“Is the minister looking at it from the number of unemployed graduates for those two years?
“If it is in that case, is the NYSC vocational training sufficient to adequately equip the graduates such that they won’t need to look for white collar jobs afterwards?
“These are some of the questions begging for answers,” he said.
Osanyin said strengthening the education sector would address many issues, such as the unemployment of Nigerian graduates.
He advised that issues of education funding, quality teachers, training and re-training, and developing 21st-century compliant curricula should be put on the front burner.
Osanyin noted that the two-year extension would not translate into the graduates becoming more competitive than their counterparts in other climes.
NAN recalls that the Minister of Education, Dr Olatunji Alausa, had on April 4, recommended the extension of the scheme and the expansion of its content.
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