President Muhammadu Buhari has on Friday in Abuja assented to Engineers (Registration etc) Amendment Bill, 2019, which among others, bars the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) from henceforth, posting graduates of engineering to secondary schools to teach.
The bill which has now become the Act of the National Assembly seeks to promote technological development in Nigeria by ensuring that trained engineers are well positioned to deploy the knowledge acquired in their various fields to the development of technology in the country.
Briefing journalists in the State House, Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters, Senator Ita Enang, said as against the tradition of posting a large number of engineering graduates to schools by NYSC, youth corps members who are graduates of engineering must henceforth be posted only to engineering firms and other institutions that are relevant to their professional fields.
Aside prohibiting such firms from rejecting engineering graduates posted to them, the Act mandates NYSC to immediately communicate the name of any institution where an engineering graduate is posted to, for his/her primary assignment, to the Council for Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN).
Enang cited Section 14 (i and ii) of the Act which provides that “The Directorate of the National Youth Service Corps shall ensure posting of graduate engineers and technologists to places of relevant professional engineering experience.
“Pursuant to the provision of subsection (i), the Directorate of National Youth Service Corps shall communicate the location of graduate engineers and engineering technologists to the Council.’’
Furthermore, the Act prohibits any foreign engineering firm from operating in Nigeria without being duly registered in the country by COREN.
It also mandates such a foreign firm to ensure the introduction of local content into the operations of the company by employing Nigerian engineers.
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