The director-general of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Shu’aibu Ibrahim, has urged companies accepting corps members to treat them as full staff.

Mr Ibrahim, represented by the North West Area Office Director of the scheme, Zainab Isah, made the plea at a 2021 NYSC Corps employers workshop held on Wednesday in Kaduna.

The workshop’s theme was ‘Optimising the NYSC Corps Employers Partnership for National Developmentin the Context of the New Normal’.

According to Mr Ibrahim, employers sometimes do not assign corps members roles that correspond to their skills and qualifications.

“Some employers give the corps members too much workload, and they hardly allow them to go on break. Employers should treat the corps members as their own permanent staff as they are also their responsibilities during the course of the national service,” he explained. “The health and well-being of the corps members are very key as that of permanent staff in any organisation. They must take care of them to complement the scheme in trying its best in ensuring their safety and health.”

He added, “The scheme is doing its best financially and otherwise to take care of the corps members, detaching the corps members from their biological parents automatically goes down to the NYSC staff and corps employers from assuming the roles of their parents.”

Mr Ibrahim also frowned at the increasing rejection of corps members by organisations.

An NYSC coordinator, Isah Wana, said the achievement of the scheme’s objectives could only be sustained through the collective efforts of all stakeholders, including the managers of the corps members.

He said the workshop aimed to obtain feedback from the strategic stakeholders on the strength, weaknesses, and potentials of the scheme and chart ways of strengthening its operations. 

(NAN)