Background of the Study
The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) is a programme that involves Nigerian graduates in the development and integration of their country. The scheme covers a one year programme where graduates are posted randomly within the country to serve their fathers land with all diligence and patriotism. Every year more than 5,000 corps members are deployed to each state for one year service. This deployment is in three (3) batches namely batches A, B and C. Batches A and B corps members are usually more in number while batch C corps members are fewer.
Out of this number some will relocate from the state they are deployed to another state because of certain reasons like marital status and health condition.
Corps members should be posted to cities and states far from their homes and states of origin. They are expected to mix with people of other tribes, social and family backgrounds, to learn the culture of the indigenes in the place they are posted to. It is a way to engender unity in Nigeria, to help youths appreciate other ethnic groupings in the country. During the one year period of service, there is an “Orientation” period of approximately three weeks which is spent in a camp away from family and friends. Within these three weeks period of orientation camp, corps members undergo trainings (physical and emotional education) to prepare them for the task ahead. They validate their registration before the camp, they are required to provide some necessary documents before they could be fully registered for the camp. This internal registration is done manually and usually stressful for the corps members. Only corps members who register before the deadline (usually 12 midnight on the third or fourth day depending on the duration of the orientation) are allowed to participate in the orientation exercise. Within this period, they usually face with the trouble of getting the right information at the right time and also locating the camp region and having all necessary documents at hand.
National Youth Service Corps Scheme, having gained general acceptability nationwide needs a conductive atmosphere and a befitting environment for proper orientation of the youths in Nigeria. The programme also help in creating jobs opportunity for a lot of Nigerian youths. An NYSC forum dedicated to the NYSC members was recently built to bridge the gap amongst members serving across Nigeria and also an avenue for corps to share job information and career resources as well as getting loans from the National Directorate of Employment. The NYSC programme is a programme that prepares youths to work after tertiary education in universities, polytechnics and their equivalent. This program is suffering a lot of setbacks such as posting a graduate of science programme to appropriate place of primary assignment and also an efficient communication platform with the management bodies and the corps members. Some corps members, due to lack of information, do not effectively perform their service. It is expected that this study would help to proffer solution(s) to these problems.
Okeke (1999) in his theoretical research observed that the programme with such laudable aims and objectives had been fraught with so many problems, among which is the need for well-designed and equipped orientation camps for the orientation and redirection of our youths to help
meet up with the demands of the ever changing society. This study proffers a solution to this. Embracing Information and Communication Technology will go a long way to curb these issues as well. It is befitting for every arm of the NYSC wing to embraces ICT platforms which will enhance effective management of the system.