This is the
first of many series and I just want to start with this; service year is not a
year to think of how your life has been or a year to make money. The way the
government has scheduled it, service year is a frustrating year where you have
enough time but limited access either to what you really want to do or what you
really should do. Even though there are opportunities to learn a trade or a
skill it still limits you in terms of the technical know-how. This might be a
place where I complain or just simply let out my frustration but it is also a
place where I let you all know how I am coping with my service year in this
local government(which I won’t mention except for you that know me personally).
Service year should be a year where we serve our father land and also integrate
due to the different cultures, traditions, languages, religions in our beloved
country but as we can see now the aim and ethos as my friend would say is being
sidelined these days. There’s no passion or can I say patriotism and even the
graduates with professional courses are thrown into schools to teach.
How would a
graduate of quantity surveying or someone who studied Microbiology end up
teaching Biology or chemistry in school when after service year the person
would be looking for a job in a hospital or a laboratory? A service year where
all we do is go to school for four days in a week and even the CDS day is just
more or less like a day where we just come together and talk on issues that
won’t even improve us. Although I laud the effort of NYSC in introducing SAED
but that is something we can always do if we are interested and not be forced
down our throats, service year has been forced on us already why force Skill
Acquisition on us too?
The first 3
months of service is always interesting from the camp experience to settling
down and getting to know people on ground, the way they accept you and tell you
“this local government is the best” you really enjoy it and obviously believe
them until u get settled down and realize “it’s not as they say it”. You get to
the fifth month and then the months begin to drag, the school begins to get
boring and you just want something different. From the sixth month to the
eighth month it’s like you want something more but all you can get is what is
around you. By the way I’m talking from my own point of view meaning my own
Place of Primary Assignment, and here you have little to hold on to even if the
state capital is 2 hours away you still cannot just decide to go to the capital
one afternoon (although I can) without thinking of the cost and also the risk
involved.
The last 3
months of service to me is also fun because that is the winding down and
Passing Out and it’s also a time to round up all the programs one is having
from the school to the SAED programs and all you have come to do. I am simply
just summarizing as I would buttress on points bothering me and the challenges I’m
facing plus what is really making me frustrated about this service. Should it
be scrapped though? That question I would always dodge because its purpose is
quite good but the situation of the country now does not support the ethos of
NYSC. I’m really frustrated as each day I wake up and think “what would I
achieve today” not just to my PPA but towards myself, how am I improving
because at the end of the day it’s me, my certificate and my destiny no more
allowee and no secured job. May we rise above the stereotype of our leaders and
those that believe we are only as good as our last jobs.
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