NYSC Trains 400,000 Corps Members on Skill Acquisition

The Director General of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Brig. Gen. Johnson Olawumi‎ said Friday that NYSC has trained over 400, 000 corps members on Skill Acquisition since 2012.

The DG dropped the hint in Abuja while hosting the Commander, Guards Brigade, Brig. Gen. Musa Yusuf in his office, where he stressed that the scheme had been doing a lot as far as skill acquisition was concerned.

According him, "we started that programme since 2012, and since then we have trained over 400,000 Corp members in various skill acquisition programmes, we are talking about twelve skills set, so, sometimes I get surprised when people suggest NYSC should engage in skill acquisition, and we have been doing that and we are still going to do more."

The DG revealed that NYSC was partnering with international bodies, adding that in a couple of weeks from now that a special training would be organised in NYSC camp in Kubwa.

Yusuf stated: "We are partnering with organisations that focuses on property development under the sponsorship of the world Bank, where we want to improve the skills of corps members who might be involved in all sectors of property development that is going to start from any moment from now.

In order to put an end to the problem corps members faced in raising a start-up capital after acquiring skills, the DG noted; "we have been doing a lot to ensure they have access to start-up capital, for example we have NYSC foundation, as we speak the foundation has just approved a loan of N10 million for corps members and based on the business plan,  they  could get between N250,000 and 400,000,

"We have also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Bank of Industry, though it's yet to take off but we are working on it. About couple of months ago, I also approached Heritage Bank, and it is also setting aside a sum of N250 million under a package where corps members will get some soft loans and the only collateral they will use will be their discharge certificate," Yusuf said.

Earlier, Brig. Gen. Yusuf said Guards Brigade had an elaborate security arrangement in place including regular patrolling of FCT for 24 hours in order to ensure ultimate security of corps members and the FCT in general.