Looking forward to the time when I will have a personal experience of the mandatory service in my country. I've been reading and hearing about this mandatory service for about two decades now and the only close experience I've had was when my sister and cousin went to serve their fatherland somewhere far from home.
Here in Nigeria, the mandatory service is for fresh graduates from the tertiary institutions and it is simply going to another geopolitical region in the country aside from one's place of origin, to know, learn and interact with people from another tribe and culture for a year. This idea is to bridge the gap between cultural and tribal differences, allowing citizens of Nigeria come together and interact as if one regardless of their tribe and culture. Come to think of it, it is actually very cool and much of an adventure to stay in another part of the country for a year, an entirely new environment, people, way of life and daily routine.
I love the fact that every youth is expected to serve immediately after graduating from the higher institution, (though some might choose to delay a year). You get to experience a new life outside the school and classroom walls for a year; in a totally different place. Meet new people who are in same age range with you, wear the same outfits for a year, stay in same room with few, share things together and literally do everythimg together. Besides, the whole activity on service camp can be very stressful as I heard, the military morning call, military exercises, then the appointment of where to work. My sister was appointed to work as a teacher in a school, she taught the junior secondary business studies and senior secondary students accounting. Both subjects were related to what she study n the university which was not much of a burden to her to teach; except for the plenty lesson notes. I've once worked as a teacher and the one thing I dislike about it is writing long lesson notes, I could just write out the valid lessons not stories.
The other side of this mandatrory service is that the government no longer consider and care much for the youth corpers. Coolers barely have government accommodations, will have to manage where ever they see. The insecurity has gone and even very worse in certain parts of the country and dangerous to travel down to such places. Over 7 years now, there have been cases of kidnapping youth corpers on their way to their service camp. Only a good national security can solve this issue. Another one that looks like it is accidents on the way to service camp; I do not know if is a norm but it is so bad that in almost every batch there is an accident. I pray this norm would change very soon.
The government is also responsible for giving monthly allowance to every youth corper throughout the service year. The allowance is just too small to cover up for 3 week expenses, if spent on just food then it won't last more than two weeks. If the amount can be increased x3 or x4 then every corper will be living fine on such amount. It was announced last month that the monthly allowance would be increased by 3 by it is yet to take effect. I hope it starts soon.