The service has announced that no prospective corps member will be mobilised for national service without clearance from the Nigeria Education Repository and Databank (NERD). In a direct and assertive notice on its official X account on Monday, the scheme put it bluntly: “No NERD clearance, No NYSC!!!” The tying of NYSC mobilisation to NERD Clearance is not a spontaneous or impractical order. Before now, a graduate’s paper qualifications moved from school to school, agency to agency, often with little central checks and supervision. NYSC is a national service programme, not just a mobilisation exercise, and it should only certify graduates who actually earned the qualifications they present.