By| Goodluck E.Adubazi, Abuja
The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) and the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) have pledged to strengthen their collaboration to improve corps mobilisation, data management and service delivery to Nigerians.
The NYSC Director-General, Brigadier General Olakunle Nafiu, made the commitment when he received the JAMB Registrar and Chief Executive Officer, Professor Segun Aina, in his office in Abuja.
Nafiu congratulated Aina on his appointment, describing his previous experience as a corps member who served with JAMB, alongside his professional background, as valuable assets that would enhance his performance in the new assignment.
The NYSC boss described JAMB as a key partner in the mobilisation process, noting that the examination body provides critical primary data required for the online registration of prospective corps members.
He commended JAMB for its continued support, particularly in the area of seamless Application Programming Interface (API) data sharing with the NYSC.
“We thank the Management of JAMB for their support over the years. We believe so much in the credibility of JAMB, and we have enjoyed seamless API data sharing with JAMB,” Nafiu said.
In his remarks, JAMB Registrar, Professor Segun Aina, called for deeper collaboration between the two organisations to maximise the contribution of corps members and enhance their service experience.
Aina said his own experience as a corps member had significantly influenced his career path and prepared him for his current leadership responsibility at JAMB.
He assured that JAMB would continue to maintain strict standards in processing requests for changes to candidates’ data, while allowing flexibility in genuinely peculiar cases arising from the NYSC mobilisation process.
According to him, such flexibility would not compromise the integrity and credibility of JAMB’s records.
The Registrar further disclosed that a new framework involving the NYSC, JAMB and the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) would soon be unveiled to make the process of effecting legitimate data changes more seamless.
Aina also proposed the deployment of corps members to JAMB offices as customer service representatives, saying their presence would help the board communicate more effectively with young Nigerians.
“We want to speak directly to the young people, we want to speak the language of young people, and we need other young people to help us do it,” he said.
He added: “We want to build an army of customer service representatives by using Corps Members.”
The proposed collaboration is expected to further strengthen data exchange, improve mobilisation processes and create additional opportunities for corps members to contribute to public service delivery.
