By Simon Muli
A poster shared on Facebook claims that the National Youth Service (NYS) is offering free courses for servicemen and women.
Background
The poster, which appears to have been printed on page 10 of an unidentified publication, lists a number of certificate and diploma courses that interested applicants can pursue with the NYS for free.
The certificate courses include plumbing, electrical installations, carpentry and joinery, masonry, driving, building and construction. The diploma courses listed are computer science, engineering skills, accounting technicians and forestry management among others.
The poster says applicants must be Kenyan citizens, must undergo a COVID-19 test and be ready to undertake their prefered course in any part of Kenya.
Applicants for the certificate courses are expected to have attained grades between E to D+, the post adds, while those applying for the diploma course much have scored C- to C+. While this grading system is similar to the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) the post does not say in which examination applicants must attain the grades.
Applications are to be sent by email to a yahoo webmail account by November 2, 2020, indicating the course the applicant wishes to undertake, their county and sub-county of residence as well as their telephone number.
The post also includes what appears to be a photo of the post’s author and a message that encourages the public to apply for the courses.
Verification
However, neither the poster nor its contents are published on the NYS website, as is the norm with all recruitment of youth to join the voluntary program for Kenyan citizens, according to the guidelines under the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) tab.
The FAQs section highlights the fact that recruitment to the NYS is carried out twice a year and the minimum academic qualification is a KCSE grade D plain. There is no provision for an E grade as claimed in the poster.
The NYS website also says that during recruitment exercises, applicants are normally asked to present themselves in their areas when announced, rather than email their applications as claimed by the poster in question.
On October 28, 2020, the NYS tweeted a screenshot of the poster, terming it fake and labelling it a scam.
Verdict
PesaCheck has looked into the poster shared on Facebook and claiming that the National Youth Service is offering free courses for servicemen and women and finds it to be FAKE.
This story was produced by PesaCheck in partnership with Code for Africa’s iLAB data journalism programme, with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie.
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