The Canadian firm which is a leading provider of success soft skills training, innovative business skills and personal development is also offering the management with the skills and knowledge to come out with ways to make the new vision sustainable, especially to imbibe in personnel adequate skills to be readily employable.

For a start, I am Worth it Project, organised a two-day intensive training at the Movempic Hotel in Accra where the experts took the NSS management through modern skills in dealing with the youth, the face of youth unemployment, how to resort to team work to find solutions to existing challenges.

It was organised under the theme “Deployment for Employment: The NSS Approach to Development”.

30 years

Addressing the participants, the lead consultant and the CEO, Ms Tammy Sheger with over 30 years of combined experience in business, leadership and training said their proprietary methods of teaching soft skills are designed to work in the day-to-day real world of business, career and life.

She explained that studies have shown that up to 85 per cent of a personal success comes from their expertise in soft skills and added that that is why they offer a soft skills training program that addresses the deeper psychological and social constraints facing youth including hope and belief in a bright and successful future.

She quoted recent labour market studies which had found that mindset interventions prove effective by either instilling aspirations or shifting perceptions of opportunities in either formal employment or self-employment.

“Increasing one youth’s earning potential not only changes the life of the one young person but that of their family, their community and the world at large”, she said.

She added that the ultimate outcome of the project is to enhanced economic empowerment, well-being and long-term employment for youth in Ghana because a gainfully employed youth with the skills to industrialize and move Ghana beyond aid.

Repositioning

In a speech read on his behalf, the Minister of Education, Mr Yaw Osei Adutwum commended the Executive Director and his Management team for repositioning the Scheme in a short term to have a workforce that is competent, well resourced, dedicated and committed to the course of the vision to achieve greater heights.

He called on the staff and managements to contribute in diverse ways to ensure the realisation of the repositioning drive spearheaded by the Executive Director.

He noted that over the years, the scheme had primarily focused on deploying graduates who had completed various programmes from accredited tertiary institutions, however, at the onset of the Akufo-Addo administration, a new outlook in terms of introducing sound modules aimed at equipping personnel with the relevant skills and creating jobs (through institutional collaboration) has been put in force.

These include GNSS/Ghana Tech Lab, GNSS/Agri Impact, GNSS/University of Professional Studies, Accra and GNSS/Ghana Tourism Authority, etc. These programmes have a primary concentration in greenhouse management, entrepreneurial skills, information technology, and assisting the tourism industry with adequate human resources.

Mr Adutwum added that government continue to support state agencies to assist in the organisation of programmes of this nature in harnessing the human resource capacity of their workforce.

Partnership

The Executive Director of the National Service Scheme, Mr Osei Assibey Antwi stated that the scheme partnered the consultants because it is repositioning itself to be able to permanently employ some of its personnel and ensure that the rest have the required employable skills and experiences ready for the world of work.

This, he explained, had become crucial due to the increasing opportunities offered by the Akufo-Addo Administration for more institutions to become degree awarding and the need for their products to undergo national service after the courses.

Mr Osei Assibey said the new directions had become urgent looking at the increasing number of youth who were deployed by the scheme and the impending situation which would exponentially increase the number of service personnel.

“By the time the personnel bid us farewell after their one year of national service we should be able to beat our chest and tell the world that now we have really equipped them, provided them with the required skills to either establish their own businesses, employ others and contribute to reducing the unemployment rate or be readily be employed”, he assured.

The Board Chairman of NSS, Nee Tetteh Fio, indicated that the scheme would be 50 years next year and it was crucial at this stage to put in measures that would sustain the positive impact the scheme had had on the personnel deployed over the years in be in good stead to tell its successful and positive story.