The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) and the Enterprise Development Centre (EDC) of Pan Atlantic University are set to launch a digital platform that will provide corps members across Nigeria with access to skills acquisition and entrepreneurship education.
The development followed a visit by NYSC Director General, Brigadier General Olakunle Oluseye Nafiu, to the EDC headquarters in Lekki, Lagos, where both organisations took steps to formalise the collaboration. The initiative is yet to be officially announced, but has already been described as a game changer.
Brigadier General Nafiu said the NYSC was committed to addressing youth unemployment through the scheme. "We are aware that we cannot go the entire stretch alone. We look for partners that are willing to collaborate with us, and I think EDC is one of the foremost partners we need to bring on to restructure, remodel, and redefine the plans we have," he said. He added that the platform was being designed with a new generation of tech savvy corps members in mind.
EDC Programmes and Partnerships Director, Dr. Olawale Anifowose, said corps members would gain access to an SME toolkit providing all the resources needed to thrive as entrepreneurs or in paid employment in Nigeria. He noted that EDC and NYSC had maintained a working relationship for nearly ten years.
NYSC's Skills Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development (SAED) Director, Mr. Kehinde Aremu Cole, said the programme had evolved since 2012 to place equal weight on entrepreneurial mindset alongside practical skills, while EDC Director Dr. Nneka Okekearu described the partnership as aligned with EDC's 23 year mission of deepening Nigeria's entrepreneurship ecosystem.
