Tired and frustrated, Esther and Herty, both graduates of the Ghana Institute of Journalism stood in a long queue waiting for their turn to start their registration process for the 2014/2015 National Service posting.
To them, the anxious months spent waiting for the release of the postings was nothing compared to what they had to go through during the registration process. Esther arrived at the registration center at 9:30 am on Monday and after waiting in a queue for six hours, she was yet to take her turn.
“Registration officials from the National service secretariat by virtue of the manual system being used were dead slow. They have been literally handwriting our particulars into a certain notebook. You can imagine only two people attending to all of us, not only annoying but crazy. At times when others cut corners, officials looked on powerless and these further delayed activities here. I have been standing here all day. I’m even broken.”
Herty, who had to wait for eight hours in the queue before taking her turn at the registration desk says this grueling experience will be with her forever.
“It’s the first time I have had to go through a thing like this. While I thought I could complete this within an hour and head back home, it was not to be. I am still trying to come to terms with exactly what is hindering the national service secretariat from adopting an online system to facilitate this instead of this time-wasting venture.”
The National Service Scheme (NSS) has seen some transformation over the years in its implementation. Tertiary students in their final year are now able to apply to undertake the service online before they graduate. However the registration process after their postings have been released on the portal of the NSS website is an arduous task according to the graduates.
Authorities of the National Service Scheme are not leveraging technology to improve the registration process. During the process, details of the service personnel are still handwritten with pens in notebooks. The personnel also have to travel far distances to go through the registration process at designated centers across the country. The entire process takes 3-5 days to complete.
Ghanaian students who graduate from tertiary institutions are required by law under Act 426 of the 1992 constitution to do a one year national service to the country. The rationale behind the National Service Scheme (NSS) is to instill patriotism in citizens and help reduce graduate unemployment.
About 71,189 graduates have been deployed nationwide this year to undertake their national service in both the public and private sector. The education, health and private sector were the major beneficiaries of the scheme receiving 52 percent, 12 percent and 16 percent respectively of the total number. In recent years, much attention is being placed on engaging the youth in Agriculture hence graduates are posted to areas to take up cultivation of crops to support the nation’s Agricultural sector.
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