All National Youth Service (NYS) graduates seeking to work abroad will now be required to enroll at Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions to be equipped with various skills.

In the proposal made by Public Service Cabinet Secretary Moses Kuria on Friday, February 23, the CS said the extra courses would highly benefit NYS graduates by preparing them for jobs President William Ruto secured abroad.

Kuria who was speaking during the admission of NYS Recruits from all 1,400 wards countrywide, said he was engaging the Council of Governors to make the proposal mandatory.

“I’m also in discussion with the Council of Governors to have all the TVETS across the country absorb these graduates when they complete their courses and make sure they benefit from extra courses in those institutions for the readiness of our job export programs,” he stated.

In December last year, Kuria announced that at least 40 NYS personnel had been deployed to the United Kingdom for employment opportunities.

This was after the UK’s Seasonal Worker Scheme (SWS) announced that it is seeking NYS graduates with qualifications in agriculture to fulfill seasonal positions within the horticulture sector.

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It was revealed that the successful candidates would work in the fruit and vegetable sector for a duration of six months, starting February 2024.

”We’ve just deployed the first batch of 40 service men and women who are going to the UK for readily available jobs. We are going to have fifty percent of everybody going out there coming from the service provider number one which is the National Youth Service,“ said Kuria.

His statement came against the backdrop of President William Ruto’s revelation that the government will give NYS personnel the first priority in overseas jobs.

”We have concluded negotiations with another eight countries on the export of labor. The National Youth Service is going to be the central organization for pre-deployment training so that Kenyans know what they need to do when they go out,” Ruto said.

Ruto further said that NYS graduates would be given first priority in the domestic security jobs including the Kenya Defence Forces, Kenya Police, Kenya Forest Service, and the Kenya Wildlife Service.

“In order to use the NYS as the incubator, the National Security Council has decided that going forward 80% of all security recruitment will be from the National Youth Service,” Ruto said.