The flagbearer of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has revealed his plans to make national service voluntary if given the mandate to be Ghana’s president.
He made this known on Wednesday, February 7, 2024, when he was outlining his vision for the country.
According to Dr Bawumia, graduates will have the freedom to choose whether to undertake national service or not.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, to help our youth get jobs, I believe it is time to rethink the concept of our current national service scheme.
“My government will propose that those who, after completing their education, can secure jobs would be exempted from national service.
“National service will no longer be mandatory, and students will have the option to decide whether to do national service. This will also encourage companies to go to campuses for recruitment annually,” he said.
Ghana’s National Service Scheme (NSS) provides newly qualified graduates the opportunity to have practical exposure on the job, both in the public and private sectors, as part of their civic responsibility to the State.
Established in 1973, the NSS is a government of Ghana programme under the Ministry of Education with a National Secretariat in Accra and offices in all administrative regions and districts across the country.
The scheme is mandated to deploy a pool of skilled manpower drawn primarily from tertiary institutions to support the development efforts of both the public and private sectors in Ghana.
Although it is a citizenry requirement for all Ghanaians who are eighteen years old, it is currently limited to and mandatory for all Ghanaians graduating from tertiary educational institutions who are not less than eighteen years old.
The original intent of deploying freshly graduating youth under the NSS arrangement is to ensure that priority sectors of our national life are never lacking in the requisite human resources needed for development.