The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) has announced a major overhaul of its Skill Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development (SAED) programme, with plans to standardise the curriculum to achieve deeper and more sustainable impact for corps members.
The Director-General of the Scheme, Brigadier General Olakunle Nafiu, disclosed this during the 2025 second SAED stakeholders’ summit held in Abuja.
Speaking at the summit, themed “Empowering a Generation: Building Competence for the Future Workplace and Enterprise Through Impactful Partnerships,” Nafiu said the reforms form part of NYSC’s broader strategy to combat youth unemployment through skills development and digital innovation.
He explained that the SAED programme is undergoing comprehensive digital transformation, with the updated curriculum now incorporating emerging skills such as artificial intelligence, mobile application development, and other technology-driven competencies.
Nafiu also revealed that corps members are being integrated into the Federal Government’s 3 Million Technical Talent (3MTT) programme, alongside global remote work platforms including Outsource to Nigeria, NYSC Jobs.ng, and the SAED SME Toolkit.
Describing SAED as a cornerstone of youth empowerment in Nigeria, the NYSC DG said more than 3.18 million corps members have completed entrepreneurship and workplace readiness training since 2012. He added that over 30,000 SAED-supported businesses have been formally registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), contributing to job creation and national economic growth.
According to him, the focus going forward will be on competence, mastery of skills, and digital fluency to ensure corps members remain competitive in a rapidly evolving global economy.
Nafiu further described the recently launched ₦2 billion MSME loan fund for corps entrepreneurs, established in partnership with the Bank of Industry (BoI), as a major milestone in the Scheme’s entrepreneurship development efforts.
He commended the founding fathers of the NYSC for embedding entrepreneurship training into the objectives of the Scheme, noting that while Nigeria’s unemployment rate stood at 1.9 per cent in 1973, it has risen to about 6.9 per cent today.
“We must remain committed to empowering a generation whose innovation and enterprise will shape Nigeria’s future prosperity. Equipping our young people is not just a programme; it is a national assignment, and NYSC is fully committed to it,” Nafiu said.
Earlier, the Director of SAED, Kehinde Aremu-Cole, praised stakeholders for their continued support in transforming sectors such as technology, creative industries, entrepreneurship, financial empowerment, and agriculture.
He described previous training programmes, grants, and mentorship initiatives as impactful, stressing that they are helping to shape Nigeria’s future through corps members. Aremu-Cole urged stakeholders to create special-purpose funding pathways that would convert skills and aspirations into sustainable enterprises.
“Together, we are not just running a programme; we are building a generation,” he said.
