National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) has urged state governments yet to establish permanent orientation
camps for corps members to do so to avoid distracting schools’ academic calendar.
The Director General of the service, Brig.-Gen. Shuaib Ibrahim, made the call when he featured on the
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum on Thursday in Abuja.
He said that the call was necessary because the 21-day NYSC orientation in those states which had yet to establish
permanent camps were conducted in schools, distracting academic activities during that period.
While appealing to such state governments, Ibrahim said “by the NYSC Act, it is not the responsibility of NYSC to
establish orientation camps or maintain them, it is the responsibility of states.
“So far, we have close to 32 permanent orientation camps in the country.
“ In those states where we don’t have permanent orientation camps, we encourage the
governors to do the needful, so that our corps members would have minimal discomfort during orientation.
“Some states that have the permanent orientation camps also need facelift,; we are discussing
with some state governors on this and they are trying to do what is expected in that area.”
The NYSC boss added that the scheme on its part would also intervene in the area of maintenance of some facilities.
He, therefore, explained that “the scheme mobilises about 400,000 corps members annually with about six
streams, and for us to be using the schools, it would be disrupting academic calendar of students.
“Students are often relocated to nearby secondary schools until the orientation is over.
“We believe that if permanent orientation camps are provided, it will address the challenge.”
