Education Minister Proposes Two-Year NYSC to Boost Youth Entrepreneurship

Nigeria’s Minister of Education, Dr. Maruf Olatunji Alausa, has proposed that the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme be extended from its current one-year duration to two years, in a bid to enhance the entrepreneurial capacity of Nigerian graduates.

Dr. Alausa made this proposal on Friday during a courtesy visit by the new NYSC Director-General, Brigadier General Olakunle Nafiu, to his office in Abuja. He emphasized the importance of strengthening the NYSC Skill Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development (SAED) programme to better prepare corps members to become job creators rather than job seekers.

“You’ve done very well as an organization,” the minister said. “NYSC should be expanded to give young people more time and opportunity to develop the skills the nation needs.”

In addition to his call for NYSC reform, Dr. Alausa commended the scheme’s successful digital transformation, which has helped reduce certificate fraud, especially among foreign-trained graduates within the West African subregion.

He also addressed the long-standing concern regarding part-time OND graduates who obtain full-time Higher National Diplomas (HNDs) but have previously been exempted from national service.

Earlier in the meeting, General Nafiu praised the minister for his visionary leadership and called for the creation of a centralized database to track Nigerian youths pursuing academic degrees abroad.