By Samuel Edu

|

The National Youth Corps (NYSC) has said academic qualifications with skill acquisition is the only panacea to the increasing unemployment rate in the nation.

 Ondo State Coordinator of the Corps, Mrs. Victoria Ani stated this while flagging off the opening ceremony of 2023 Batch ‘A’ (Stream II) Skill Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development (SAED) training during the mandatory three weeks orientation exercise in Ikare.

Ani disclosed that the NYSC management in her wisdom introduced the intervention in 2012 as a means of reducing the high unemployment rate in the country.

“It is to efface this bleak and dreary picture that the Skill Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development (SAED) programme was carefully designed in 2012 to equip corps members with hands-on training and entrepreneurship skill in order to be self-reliant.

“The noble Scheme has designed an in-camp training which is relatively free for you to acquire skills that will make you independent and indispensable during and after the service year”.

She disclosed that the unemployment rate in the country is is about 37.7 percent and may likely rise to 41 percent in 2023 while lamenting that young graduates lack the requisite practical skills to compete for available jobs nationally and internationally.

The Assistant Director/Head, SAED, Mr. Justus Adefehinti encouraged the Corps members not to allow the opportunity to pass them by as they are academically qualified and privileged to benefit from the intervention.