Hire military staff from NYS

For a long time, the National Youth Service (NYS) was a powerful institution that was used by the State to instil into the youthful people the love of one’s nation.

The young adults who benefited from NYS patriotism training were students who had passed their A level of education but awaiting to join universities.

The training was mandatory and the government invested heavily in it. Students’ activism that began mid 80s and peaked in the early 90s, however, questioned the value of NYS.

The students argued that NYS’s sole mandate was to make them subservient to the dictates of an oppressive State. So much hatred was then developed by the university students against the outfit that in later years no young person was willing to join it. 

Basic military drills

Though university students shunned NYS, the programme never died. The government, in an effort to make the NYS continue operating, appealed to Form Four school leavers who had not secured university admission but interested in acquiring various skills to join NYS. 

The mere fact that trainees at the NYS don military fatigues and they are trained on basic military drills, have won the hearts of quite a number of young people interested in joining the military to register for NYS training.

Young people who join NYS undergo tough and thorough military drills that test the limit of their physical strengths. Some youth who are not endowed with physical stamina are said to have sneaked out of training midway.

The military drills the NYS recruits undergo have, in the past, made them so much valuable in complementing the duties of police officers when need arise especially during general elections.

Sadly, despite the skill set and background training in military tactics, those who pass through NYS are never taken seriously when it comes to recruitment of military officers.

George Olwalo, Kenyatta University