The National Service Scheme (NSS) is developing an electric job platform which aims to absorb all completing service personnel and match their skill sets for companies in need of their services.
The Executive Director of the National NSS, Mr Osei AsibbeyAntwi, who announced this at a stakeholder conference in Accra last Thursday, said the scheme was liaising with various agencies and institutions to ensure that a significant number of personnel who complete the service got employed.
The conference attracted over 300 principals and registrars of both public and private tertiary educational institutions to deliberate on the theme “Strengthening GNAA Database through Digitilisation for Efficient Deployment”.
Mr Antwi said the NSS had rolled out a new system to offer more service personnel with skills and hands-on entrepreneurial training to make them ready for the job market or establish their own companies after one year.
The system, he said, fell within the scheme’s new vision of ensuring service personnel became either self-employed, or employable to reduce the rate of unemployment in the country.
“Already, the scheme is in collaboration with some tertiary institutions and corporate entities that had led to the establishment of various models such as estate development, computer applications and software development among others,” he said.
He indicated that the Ghana Export Promotion Authority was also offering service personnel with entrepreneurial and other skills required to create products and services which could be exported outside Ghana.
Mr Antwi said though the scheme was not deviating from the dictates of Act 426 (1980), it was determined to be innovative to meet the socio-economic needs of the Ghanaian graduate.
“Over the years, we have traditionally deployed personnel for their national service after which many of them are left without meaningful employment”, he said and added that to close that gap, management of NSS had engaged the services of a consultant to draft a policy document,” he said.
The Director General of the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission, Professor Mohammed Salifu, commended the management of NSS for the reforms it was implementing
He stressed the need for all stakeholders to embrace the changes and support the management of the scheme to succeed.
Prof.Salifu also commended the initiative of the NSS which sought to match the skills of personnel with prospective employers.
BY YAW KYEI
