18th January, 2013
It has been revealed that some Nigerian graduates taking part in National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme can hardly communicate in English Language.
The Director-General of NYSC, Brig-Gen. Nnamdi Okore-Affia made the revelation in Ilorin, capital of Kwara state, while addressing the 2013 batch A pre-mobilisation workshop.
He said that the level of academic deficiency among corps members had heightened corps rejection and redundancy.
“Unfortunately too, we have corps members who can hardly communicate in English Language let alone being able to teach in the classrooms.
” This worrisome development has resulted in a situation whereby members of the public wrongly condemn the NYSC for the poor academic standards displayed by these corps members,’’ Okore- Affia said.
He said the inability of academic institutions to produce eligible corps members had become a herculean task for NYSC management.
He added, “going through the figures presented for mobilisation by Corps Producing Institutions (CPIs) in year 2012,it was discovered that many exceeded the admission quota approved by regulatory bodies by as much as 500 per cent in extreme cases.
Okore-Affia said many principals of schools and other employers were ejecting corps members posted to their schools and offices and stressed that it was difficult to even re-orientate such corps members.