National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members in Enugu State are to train no fewer than 500 students in Awgu Local Government Area of Enugu State on computer appreciation.

The training is to prepare the students for the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) Computer Based Tests (CBT) currently deployed for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME).

The NYSC State Coordinator, Mr Stephen Dewan, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Enugu of the plan after a meeting with a member of the House of Representatives, Chief Toby Okechukwu.

Okechukwu represents Aninri/Awgu/Oji River Federal Constituency in the National Assembly.

Dewan said that the move was in line with the Community Development Service (CDS) of the NYSC scheme, aimed at addressing the felt needs of host communities.

He said that the NYSC had discovered that there were no computer training centres in the area, which would affect the performance of students participating in such examinations.

The state coordinator said that it had become necessary to make intervention considering recent innovations introduced by the regulators of the examinations.

“In the course of the CDS of the corps members, they are expected to contribute to the felt needs of the their host communities. We discovered there are no computer training centres in the local government area.

“As a deliberate policy to address this need, we are arranging corps members to train prospective SSCE and UTME candidates,” he said.

He said that no fewer than 500 prospective candidates were targeted for a pilot phase of the training, which would also offer them opportunities to learn other computer-based activities.

Dewan said that they had extracted the commitment of the lawmaker to provide the logistics for the training, including computer sets.

He appealed to the people of the area, particularly the prospective tertiary institutions applicants, to take advantage of the intervention to improve their knowledge on computer.

Also, Okechukwu said that he would fully support the mentorship training for the benefit of his constituents.

The lawmaker said that he had earlier donated some computer sets to various primary and secondary schools in the constituency.

He said that the partnership with the NYSC would increase the scope of such deliverables to ensure a smooth takeoff of the training.

Okechukwu said that the training would be carried out in clusters, with one of the centres sited at the newly constructed Awgu Civic Centre. (NAN)