NYSC bars nursing mothers from national service NYSC bars nursing mothers from national service

The National Youth Service Corps has barred prospective corps members that are pregnant and nursing mothers from participating in national service across the country. Also affected are students undergoing postgraduate studies in institutions of higher learning in the country. The Director-General, NYSC, Brig.-Gen. Johnson Olawumi, who gave the hint in Kaduna on Thursday, emphasised that those affected needed not bother to enlist for service “until they are free to participate effectively.” ADVERTISEMENT The DG said the scheme would no longer mobilise pregnant women and nursing mothers for service in the scheme established in 1973 by the Gen. Yakubu Gowon administration. Olawumi noted that the exemption of pregnant women and nursing mothers as well as postgraduate students from national service was because they could not undergo the four cardinal programmes of the NYSC. The four cardinal programmes, according to him, include mobilisation, orientation, primary assignment and winding up/passing out parade. The DG said for prospective corps members to qualify to receive certificates of national service, they must go through the four stages of the national service. The NYSC DG, in a resolution of the workshop with the theme, “ICT and NYSC mobilisation process: Towards eliminating identified challenges,” insisted that henceforth, pregnant women and children would no longer be allowed into orientation camps across the country. He said prospective corps members must be ready to fully participate in all the cardinal stages of the scheme without “which the cerificates of national service will not be released.” He said, “It was further resolved that pregnant women, nursing mothers or students engaging in postgraduate studies should not bother to enlist for service, until they are free to participate effectively.” Meanwhile, the resolutution of the 2015 ‘B’ pre-mobilisation workshop added that henceforth, documents for concessional posting request on marital or health grounds would be forwarded online 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 make their choice outside their socio-cultural and linguistic areas, using ICT solution. This, according to the NYSC, is in a bid to tackle the problem of deluge of concessional requests with which the agency was being inundated. The resolutions read in part, “With effect from the Batch ‘B’ mobilisation exercise, issues associated with the issuance of ‘exclusion letters’, graduate of part-time programmes shall go online to register without JAMB number and print the exclusion letters online once the processes are concluded. “Students Affairs Officers are to ensure that the lists of part-time graduate are submitted at the same time with the Senate/Academic Board list of the graduates for the full-time programmes. This is to enable the part-time graduates register online. “That with effect from Batch ‘B’ service year, graduates who made First Class honours degree/distinction shall be posted to serve in the institutions of higher learning in their states of deployment for effective utilisation of their knowledge and possible employment at the end of the service year. “The workshop resolved that prospective corps members should be ready to participate in all the four cardinal programmes of the scheme without which the certificate of national service will not be released. “It was further resolved that pregnant women, nursing mothers or students engaging in postgraduate studies should not bother to enlist for service until they are free to participate effectively.”