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Benjamin Oduro Asante, NSS Eastern Regional Director
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The Eastern Regional Director of the National Service Scheme (NSS), Benjamin Oduro Asante, has called on eligible Ghanaian final year students from all accredited tertiary institutions to accept their placements, as part of their contributions towards the socio-economic development of the country
Speaking exclusively with the Daily Statesman, he advised all prospective national service personnel to access their PIN Codes to enable them enrol to do their mandatory national service for the 2022/2023 service year.
He said “the Scheme has released for registration a total of 127,999 PIN Codes, and you must follow the necessary procedures for the registration process, and when postings are released, accept, regardless of the location, because you don’t know where you light is bound to shine”.
The NSS Regional Director said national service is compulsory for all persons who have graduated from tertiary level institutions in the country, adding that “it marks the beginning of service to the nation, and initiates first-timers to public and civil service life”.
Mr Oduro Asante further urged the prospective personnel to take advantage of the service to get experience, and sharpen their skills in order to enter the job market.
“The service period affords personnel the opportunity to acquaint themselves with the job environment, and also learn employable skills such as team work, diligence and punctuality to adequately prepare them for the permanent engagement after the service. Embrace this wholeheartedly since these skills are acquired by personnel who remain committed, and work closely with staff and management of the institutions they serve,” he advised.
NSS visitation
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Touching on the NSS first-ever nationwide visitation exercise, which saw him lead a delegation to visit the Blue Skies Company in Nsawam and Zipline in Suhum, he said it had enabled the NSS to elicit information on the experiences of service persons and the key stakeholders to inform the deployment of personnel for the 2022/2023 service year.
“Per the Scheme’s vision and investment opportunities, the visit also allowed the NSS management to highlight the numerous initiatives being undertaken to enhance the welfare and employability of service persons under the Scheme’s new mission of ‘Deployment for Employment’,” he said.
Mr Oduro Asante said the NSS was scaling up its income-generation activities to augment the financial support given to it by the government.
“Many national service schemes across the world have failed due to over-dependence on the central government, and we don’t want that to happen here,” he said.
Innovative solutions
The NSS Regional Director also indicated in the wake of the global economic crisis, there was the need for the NSS to reposition itself to meet the employment expectations of graduates.
“And our Executive Director, Osei Assibey Antwi, has 11 innovative modules being undertaken, which include the accounting aid, teaching, Information Technology solution, communications project and agri-business. The rest are the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture support programme, the Kumawu youth farm project, the youth in housing project, the data and research project, the support programme for sports and the climate change outreach programme,” he outlined.
Underscoring the significance of skills development, Mr Oduro Asante stated: “We have moved the Scheme from its traditional mission of ‘mobilisation for deployment’ to ‘deployment for employment’ to meet the needs of the contemporary graduate”.
In that context, he urged the various user agencies to dedicate some of their resources to train service persons towards building their skills for the job market.
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