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Workshop: Participants seek adequate funding of NYSC’s operations

David Adenekan
David Adenekan
Two more abducted youth corps members regain freedom
NYSC

There is need for adequate funding of the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, in order to meet the demands of its extensive operations.

This is the submission of speakers at the 2021 NYSC Corps Employers Workshop held at Okitipupa zone in Ondo State.

Speaking on the theme, ‘Optimising the NYSC/Corps Employers Partnership for National Development in the context of the New Normal’, Dr. Daniel Olukayode Adekeye submitted that if employers would maximise the potentials of the graduate youths posted to them, stakeholders who were the direct beneficiaries of the invaluable services of corps members should be ready to make substantial sacrifices towards assisting the scheme to effectively deliver on her objectives.

Akekeye, a Senior Lecturer in the Department of General and Entrepreneurial Studies at the Olusegun Agagu University of Science and Technology, Okitipupa, said that it was a fundamental and procedural error to believe that government alone could sustain the funding of NYSC operations.

“Distinguished corps employers, we need to tell ourselves the gospel truth. We desire NYSC to post corps members to our various organisations and institutions, yet we do not want to support the scheme financially and materially. We think government alone should shoulder the enormous responsibilities. This should not be so in the 21st century.

“It is absolutely correct that government is using part of the tax payers money to fund the scheme but as stakeholders, we need to inject workable ideas into the programme established over 48 years ago and this must not be mere academic exercise but with a sound and solid commitment by all and sundry,” he said.

The don appealed to employers to stop paying lip service to enhancing the operations of the scheme nationwide because according to him, “building on foundation which is structurally defective will not take us to the expected end.”

Corroborating him, Bashorun Bashiru Idowu Olawale of Isero Grammar School in Odigbo said that NYSC should provide the corps employers with working documents to be able to maximise the potentials of the members of the service corps.

During a similar workshop in Akoko Zone where the Owa-Ale Adimula of Ikareland, Oba Adeleke Adefemi Adegbite-Adedoyin was the Special Guest of Honour, the lead speaker, Dr. (Mrs.) Oluwafunbi Oluwafemi asserted that if the NYSC scheme was better funded, many of the ills of the society associated with youthful exuberance or peer influence would be aggressively tackled.

Oluwafemi whose area of specialisation is Agricultural Extension and Communication affirmed that rather than frustrating the good intentions of corps members about Skill Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development, SAED, programme of the NYSC, with their unwillingness to allow them perfect the skills and vocations learnt at the camp, corps employers should devise a time table acceptable to the two parties.

She agreed that some of the corps members, because of their limited scope about life and exposure to certain idiosyncrasies might be recalcitrant and unwilling to abide and adhere to work ethics at places of primary assignment but employers as parents had a task to perform and this should be done in love.

“My dear corps employers, if as parents, we can tolerate the excesses of our biological children and those that are placed under our care, let us be equally tolerant of the exuberances of these sets of graduate youths so that what they have to offer will uplift the services our organisations are designed to achieve for the society,” she said.

In his submission, Mr. Oyebode, the Vice Principal (Academics), Greater Tomorrow International School, Arigidi-Akoko appealed to employers to give adequate and appropriate inductions to corps members when they report for the continuation of their service after the orientation course.

At Ondo Zonal workshop, the lead speaker, Dr. Joshua Timothy Sunday opined that better working environment and commensurate motivation would bring out the best in the corps members.

According to Sunday, who is the acting Head, Department of Political Science, Wesley University of Science and Technology, every human being deserved the best and would offer the best services if the reward mechanism was compact and delivered to him as and when due.

Contributing, Pastor Olorunyomi Lawrence of Shaftoe Global Resources appealed to NYSC management to intensify corps inspection to all the places of primary assignment where corps members are engaged as that would continue to serve as checks and balances for the serving corps members.

In her goodwill message delivered through the Zonal Inspectors at the workshops, the State Coordinator, Mrs. Victoria Nnenna Ani, thanked the corps employers for sustaining the cordial relationships with NYSC over the years.

Ani, while promising to implement the outcome of the communique arrived at all the workshop venues vowed that NYSC would not relent in making the corps members role models that the present generation and the coming generations would continue to be proud of.

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