NYSC Members Can’t Read, Write Or Speak Good English – NYSC DG

DIRECTOR-GENERAL of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Brig.-Gen. Nnamdi Okore-Affia, Thursday lamented the quality of some of the present corps members, describing them as poor in English Language. He believes it would be a misplacement of priority if such corps members were deployed as teachers in post-primary schools.

He spoke during the 2013 Batch ‘A’ pre-mobilisation workshop in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, on the theme, Generating Credible Data for a Perfect Mobilization Process. According to him, the level of academic deficiency among corps members cannot be divorced from prompt rejection of some of them in their places of primary assignments. Therefore, since the contact period between the corps members and the NYSC remains minimal, he noted, it would be wrong for anybody to heap the blame of their ineptitude on the NYSC as a body. “You will agree with me that it is extremely difficult to re-orient a corps member who cannot read,” Okore-Affia said. “To underscore the seriousness of this challenge, we now have a situation whereby principals of schools and other employers reject corps members because they cannot fit into their work schedule.

“Also, JAMB registration number must henceforth be reflected alongside other particulars of every graduate presented to the scheme for mobilization.” Okore-Affia said the challenge of accurate and credible data generation from institutions
producing corps members for the purpose of mobilizing qualified/eligible graduates into national service has been a recurring and Herculean task. According to him, a critical review of the data submitted by corps producing institutions for
2012 service year showed serious flaws which, if unchecked, could have caused grave danger to the NYSC.