Mr Hilary Namasu, the NYSC Director of Skill Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development (SAED), has said that the scheme was partnering private sectors on skill acquisition training for corps members.

Namasu, made the disclosure at the opening ceremony of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) SAED stakeholders’ meeting and desk officers’ training on Monday in Abuja.

He said NYSC partnership with the private sectors had yielded positive results for the scheme and corps members.

Namasu listed some of the NYSC SAED partners to included Bank of Industry (BOI), Access bank, Unity bank, British America Tobacco Nigeria Foundation (BATNF), among others.

He noted that Unity bank funded bankable business proposal competition, organised to improve the ability of corps members.

Namasu also said that BATNF bankrolled a programme on agro-entrepreneurship training, where corps members, who emerged from the process undergone training and mentoring in big farm establishments.

He added that the winners of the programme would equally be empowered with fund, land, agricultural inputs and services.

Namasu said that NYSC SAED was working with managers of SAED connect platform to register skill trainers nationwide in order to improve the quality of training given to members.

He said this was to ensure standardised training curricula and achieve uniformity in the quality of training.

According to Namasu, the essence of all the steps taken by NYSC SAED is to eliminate the aged long worries of corps members.

The director noted that the SAED programme had made many corps members self-employed and financial independent.

“Hopefully, with this training, they might become employers of labour too, thereby helping the nation fight unemployment.

Earlier in his remarks, the NYSC Director-General, Brig.-Gen. Ibrahim Shuaibu, said all the corps members are equal and laden with the same potentials, irrespective of state of deployment.

“It is my honest plea that you spread the opportunities of empowerment fairly and evenly across the country,’’ Shuaibu said.