NYSC @ 50: Coordinator tasks corps members on skills acquisition

The Coordinator of National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) in Kano State, Malam Suleiman Ibrahim, has charged serving corps members to embrace the Skills Acquisition Training during and after the service year to become self-reliant

Ibrahim gave the task during the exhibition of treasures produced by serving corps members under the skills acquisition training programme held at the NYSC Secretariat along Gwarzo Road, Kano, on Wednesday.

He said skills acquisition training is a feature of the national youth service scheme.

The Coordinator noted that over 20,000 youth corps members were being mobilised annually, saying however that job opportunities are not available to accommodate all the corps members, hence the need to embrace skills acquisition training.

“In 1974, the NYSC scheme started with 11,000 young people, but today we are talking of over 20,000 and 50,000 young people every year, the jobs are not there.

“So, we are trying to ensure that young people take advantage of this opportunity and become self-employed,” he said.

The Assistant Director in charge of Skills Acquisition, Mr Waziri Jinkai, said the scheme has achieved great success in the last 50 years.

He noted that the NYSC scheme introduced skills acquisition training to address the challenge of the unavailability of white-collar jobs, geared towards making them self-reliant.

Jinkai encouraged the serving corps members to make adequate utilisation of the opportunity to achieve set objectives.

The treasures produced by the corps members were showcased for inspection during the event.