The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), has called on the 1, 695 corps members posted to Gombe State to embrace the Skill Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development Programme (SAED) introduced into the orientation course in order to be self-reliant.
The NYSC state Coordinator, Mr David Pwanidi Markson made the call on Monday at the Temporary Orientation Camp at Amada in Akko LGA during the flag off of On-camp skill acquisition training for Batch B Stream 1 corps members posted to the state.
He said the SAED programme is one of the best things to happen since the establishment of the NYSC scheme 46 years ago, adding that through the programme a lot of wealth creators have been produced.
Mr Markson said the introduction of the SAED programme into the orientation course content has helped large number of corps members to learn various skills to augment the allowance paid by the Federal Government and also became employers of labour.
“Considering the increasing rate of unemployment among Nigerian graduates, SAED was also introduced into the scheme, because most graduates do not to possess the practical skills necessary for the available jobs in the Nigerian economy.”
“The skill acquisition programme is therefore building the capacity of the corps members to gain the required entrepreneurship and hands-on skills to cope with the challenges of unemployment in the global economic down turn” Markson said.
He further urged them to come up with ideas that would make them self-reliant, “as you are aware the era of white collar jobs has gone.”
The coordinator added that the corps members would be exposed to twelve set skills with sub-sets in the course of the training and are expected to continue with the post-camp training after the orientation course.
Our correspondent reports that the skills to be taught during the 10 day on-camp training include; construction, beautification, culture and tourism, food processing and preservation.
Others are cosmetology, photography, agro-allied, Information and Communication Technology (ICT), education, power and energy, automobile and environment.
In his remarks, the Assistant Director, SAED programme, Mr Ukwenya Owoicho informed the corps members that there would be an exhibition and inter-platoon competition at the end of the 10-day training.
He advised them to take the skill acquisition seriously as plan B for self-reliance after their service year.
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