Skills Acquisition: Corps Members Establish 38,000 Businesses

National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) has said with the support of its Skills Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development (SAED), corps members have leveraged their acquired skills to pioneer over 38,433 businesses.
NYSC director-general, Brig-Gen. Yusha’u Ahmed, stated this during the scheme’s 2024 SAED stakeholders’ meeting and debriefing of SAED schedule officers in Abuja, yesterday.

Speaking on the theme, “Deepening the Impact of the Skill Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development – A Panacea for Graduate Unemployment,” he said the NYSC had also sensitised over 3,306,646 corps members on entrepreneurship development. He said over 565,489 are receiving various levels of training.
Ahmed said, “I am most pleased to report that thirty-eight thousand, four hundred and sixty-three (38,433) of them have established their own businesses and doing well as employers of labour, while eleven thousand, eight hundred and eighty-one (11,881) were financially empowered by our collaborating partners.”

The director-general said the NYSC is more determined to make the SAED more functional and elevate its status as a veritable model for youth empowerment in Nigeria.
“I, therefore, implore all partners gathered here to ensure greater dedication to the empowerment of these youths in line with the Renewed Hope Agenda of Mr. President,” he said.
Ahmed said through SAED, the NYSC had constructed and handed over well-equipped Skills Acquisition Centres for the North East Zone in Gombe; North Central in Keffi and North West in Kazaure by Access Bank Plc.

He noted that construction of that of the South West is at completion stage in Ekiti State while over 40 hectares of land had been acquired in Umuawulu, Anambra State, for the construction of the one for the South East, amongst many other accomplishments.
The stakeholders meeting was to review programme performance, reports of the previous year and proffer workable solutions, while addressing recommendations contained in the aforementioned reports and plan for a new programme cycle and others.