The government has announced plans to convert approximately 1,500 rural-based polytechnics into National Youth Service (NYS) branches subject to the approval of the Council of Governors(CoG).

Speaking on Citizen TV’s JKLive Show on Wednesday, Public Service Cabinet Secretary (CS) Moses Kuria said the proposal emerged from discussions with CoG Chair Kirinyaga Governor Anne Waiguru during the three-day Cabinet retreat in Naivasha.

“Around 1,500 polytechnics are going to be branches of NYS. These young men will be assigned there, and they will be working with other youth in the village and using the available infrastructure to build their skills.”

Additionally, Kuria credited himself for playing a significant role in ensuring the success of the recent NYS recruitment exercise, claiming to have devised an effective strategy to guarantee a transparent process.

“I actually gave a formula and instructions to recruit at the ward level based on population density. I am the first person to do recruitment fairly and equally based on a scientific empirical formula.”

Further, he said that he utilized census data to assess the population density in each ward, enabling him to allocate the appropriate percentages of individuals to be recruited from those wards.

“We have got the population density as per the census for every ward and then I assigned them some percentage. Math is my forte so I told them no…this particular ward has this density and these are the people,” he said.