NYSC to stop pregnant women, nursing mothers, PG students from service

The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) has barred pregnant women, nursing mothers and students engaged in postgraduate studies from enlisting in the national service across the country, until they are free to participate effectively.

Rising from a two-day pre-mobilisation workshop for the 2015 Batch “B” NYSC programme, held in Kaduna, Director-General of the NYSC, Brig-Gen. Johnson Olawumi, stated that the exemption of pregnant women and nursing mothers, as well as post-graduate students from national service was because they would not be able to undergo the four cardinal programmes of the NYSC.

The four cardinal programmes include mobilisation, orientation, primary assignment and winding-up passing out parade.

In a communique, the NYSC also resolved that henceforth, pregnant women and children would no longer be allowed into orientation camps across the country for service under the scheme established by the Gen. Yakubu Gowon administration in 1973.

Arguing that prospective corps members must go through the four stages of national service to qualify to receive certificate of national service, Olawumi faulted a situation whereby prospective corps members, especially pregnant women and nursing mothers, would be absent from the stages of the national service, only to resurface for posting to their various places of primary assignments.

Meanwhile, the resolution workshop tagged: “ICT and NYSC Mobilization Process: Towards Eliminating Identified Challenges,” added that henceforth, documents for concessional posting request on marital or health grounds would be forwarded on-line as against the old practice of “bringing such to the NYSC headquarters in Abuja.”

It noted that prospective corps members would henceforth be given the opportunity to choose their choice outside their socio-cultural and linguistic areas, using ICT solution.

This, according to the NYSC, is in a bid to tackle the problems of deluge of concessional request with which the scheme is inundated with regularly.