Diaspora Undergraduates: Federal Govt To Review NYSC Act

The federal government has announced plans to restructure the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) to make it flexible for Nigerian students in the diaspora to partake in the compulsory national service scheme.

Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, made the disclosure on Wednesday at the presentation of the draft 2023 budget in Abuja.

She described the current practice that makes it mandatory for a Nigerian who schooled abroad to partake in the scheme within three years of graduation, as “discouraging”.

The minister said the new plan was to amend the NYSC Act to allow the diaspora graduands participate in the national service scheme at a convenient time.

The planned amendment would also allow the diaspora corps members to set up small and medium scale businesses with a focus on job creation and attract diaspora remittances while they still get the NYSC certificate at the end of the one year period of the scheme.

Minister of Youths and Sport, Sunday Dare, who joined the programme virtually, said there’s a larger review going on now under a committee that is looking at a review of the NYSC scheme itself.