HISTORY

“………….The National Service Scheme is very necessary at this time of our economic development. I say so because now and for the foreseeable future we are going to be subjected to external influence that would be in competition with our national interest and which would progressively be eroding the confidence even in the mature people of his country………’ It will be too much to expect young men to hang around here without jobs. So unless we use this scheme to get the youth to appreciate the problems facing this country and the part they are expected to play in finding solutions to these problems, then we would be throwing good money away………. If we send them to the Army, we must ensure that the basic equipment to train them are there; if it is on the agricultural front, we should ensure that they do not just become idlers who take to drinking, smoking and other vices. We must also ensure that the National Service Personnel get to know the country very well because I think that a major cause of our problems is that people in responsible positions in Ghana today do not know the country.

There are people in the Ministry Of Economic Planning who do not know where the basic resources from which we make the money to implement our economic programmes, to run our schools, to run our hospitals, to build our roads, come from. The Western Region is the place where a sizeable portion of our timber comes from. I wonder how many of our Principal Secretaries, Ministers and Members of Parliament know the conditions that exist the  richest parts of the Western Region where we make most of our timber revenue. In the Brong Ahafo Region, Mim is one of the richest places in terms of resources but how many of us know that place?

So National Service Scheme should also have the aim of getting young men and women to know the appalling conditions existing in various parts of the country. They should be exposed to these conditions. They must care to know the conditions under which their underprivileged cousins are living, and for the Scheme to succeed, the Government will have to ensure that reasonable minimum conditions are created to facilitate the efforts of these youngsters to know their country and serve it better. We are going to make our future manpower more prepared to be used more efficiently…”  Hon. MP Atwima Nwabiagya, J.A. Kufour 1980

INTRODUCTION

The Ghana National Service Scheme is a public organization currently under the Ministry of Education and Sports of Ghana. The Scheme was first established under 1969 (Article 179), Republican Constitution of Ghana through an Act of Parliament.  It was again set up under a Military Decree NRCD 208, 1973

Currently, the Scheme is operating under the National Service Act 426 (1980), which was brought into force in 1982 by the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC).  By the Act, the minimum duration of the Scheme was increased from one (1) to two (2) years and made mandatory for all able-bodied Ghanaians between the ages of eighteen (18) years and forty (40) years.  The intervention of change in the national development programmes has again restricted the duration to one-year service for graduands of tertiary institutions.

VISION STATEMENT

The National Service Scheme has vision of mobilizing available resources to enable targeted young people, to become more educated and better prepared for national issues requiring urgent attention, through national service activities in deprived areas, within reasonable congenial conditions.

MISSION STATEMENT

National Service is committed to deploying young graduates and diplomats of tertiary institutions on national service countrywide to supplement manpower shortfalls and to provide re-orientation and entrepreneurial skills for post-national service employment, through Community Development Programmes.

This deployment would be done within a better-equipped administrative and institutional framework, towards a more efficient National Service Programme, managed by a well-motivated staff, towards increased productivity.

OBJECTIVES

The Scheme’s initial critical objectives included three (3) major objectives as follows:

• To provide trained manpower to supplement and improve existing levels of manpower in mainly the public sector;

• To provide personnel for rural development and community action;

• To provide individual youth with:
• Re-orientation;
• Introduction to a vigorous work culture;
• Additional life skills;
• An awareness of national and social problems requiring attention.

Within the scheme’s context, National Service is considered a special programme to provide first and foremost support for the usually neglected and therefore the most needy areas.  Beyond these technical objectives, the Scheme aims at instilling in the youth the sense and spirit of nation building and integration through positive programmes.

The Military Training/Orientation for selected National Service Personnel is towards high levels of physical fitness, mental alertness, patriotism, discipline, confidence, development and empathy for our rural community improvement programmes.

Presently, the National Service Scheme has progressed beyond merely deploying graduates to public institutions and establishments.  It considers itself a public development organization.  Whilst still focusing in the deployment of human resources (National Service Personnel) to institutions of the national economy, the Scheme is also engaged in collaboration with others to support in all spheres of national development policies and strategies of our national life.  Critical to this is how national service personnel could be integrated into the development efforts of our rural people; how technology and science can be made accessible to and manageable by the poor ordinary people of our country; how theories, principles and concepts can be translated into practical actions etc.