Gender, Location and Rural-Urban Differences in the Goal Attainment of National Youth Service Corps Scheme (NYSC) in South West Nigeria

Abstract

The need to identify critical factors necessary to improve the mandate attainment of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) Scheme informed this study on gender, location and rural-urban differences in the goal attainment of NYSC in South West Nigeria. Using a multistage sampling procedure, 120 outgoing youth corps members were sampled from the southwest geopolitical zone of Nigeria and data were collected on the extent of NYSC goal attainment on the respondents with the aid of structured questionnaire. Stratification procedure was observed while sampling respondents to allow for the participation of both male and female including rural and urban deployed respondents. A significant difference was observed in the extent of NYSC goal attainment between corps members serving in rural and urban areas (t=2.20; p<0.05). However, no significant difference was observed in the goal attainment of the NYSC between male and female corps members (t=0.49; p>0.05) and across the states of deployment. The study concluded that the place of posting of the corps members whether urban or rural plays significant roles on the extent of attainment of the youth development goals of the NYSC while gender of corps members and their state of deployment had no significant influence on the extent of the realization of the NYSC objectives on the corps members.