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Registration for the 2022/2023 National Service year began on Monday, October 24, 2022 at all centres across the country with 120,229 national service persons expected to go through the registration processes to enable them fulfil their one year mandatory national service.

Prior to the beginning of the registration, the scheme had released the postings with the regional distribution.

The Greater Accra Region received the highest number of 35,184 national service persons, Northern Region followed with 26,082, with the Ashanti Region receiving 17,697, while Eastern Region had 7,033.

The Western, Central and Bono regions received 6,051, 5,332 and 3,895 respectively, while the Upper East had 3,567 and the Volta Region got 2,818.

The North East Region had 2,780, Upper West Region received 2,752, Bono East Region had 2,090, Savannah Region received 1,894, Ahafo Region had 1,202, while the Western North Region had 1,046, and Oti Region received the lowest number of 805 national service persons.

At the end of the third week of registration, a total of 61,286 national service persons had successfully registered at the various registration centres across the country, and have begun their national service, which officially started from Tuesday, November 1, 2022. So far, there are 32,486 national service persons who have outstanding ID issues, and have thus not been able to register. There are 213 rejected cases which are being addressed with repostings to other user agencies. The registration is, however, expected to run through to the end of December, 2022; and so, all outstanding issues will be resolved.

Official announcement of the release of postings has always come with anxieties and high expectations among prospective national service personnel, parents, and the general public. This year’s was no exception.
Hitherto, the registration processes at the various regional centres across the country were huge burdens for
officials of the National Service Scheme to carry, as the national service personnel themselves also shared in the burden. There were times when some of the centres were just recording plain chaotic scenes as officials were overwhelmed by the sheer numbers that inundated the registration centres, especially during the first two weeks.

The height of such chaotic scenes were recorded during the registration exercise in 2017, especially in the Greater Accra Region. As a result, the scheme received heavy public backlash. Management quickly had to put in place innovative measures to curb such incidents in the future, especially with the growing numbers of eligible Ghanaian graduates for national service with each passing year.

Consequently, management settled on booking system, where a person posted to do national service, upon receipt of his/her appointment letter, would be required to first proceed to the user agency, where he/she has been posted, to get the appointment letter endorsed as confirmation of acceptance of the service person to undertake the national service with the user agency.

The person so posted and duly accepted by the user agency, by way of endorsement of the appointment letter, would then be required to book an appointment online; on the scheme’s website, for a particular date and time to make himself/herself available at a designated registration centre to go through validation and registration, before proceeding to present the final appointment letters to the appropriate place, and begin the national service at the appointed date.

It is instructive to note that bookings are controlled by the scheme’s Management Information System to allow for only a sizeable and manageable number of service persons at a time on any particular day, to avoid overcrowding and stampede. This system is indeed, a novelty, and has, to a very large extent, proven to be very effective in averting the otherwise chaotic scenes that characterised registration centres in the past.

Today, the atmosphere at all the registration centres across the country has been that of smoothness, calmness, orderliness and stress-free for national service persons and staff.

The Executive Director of the scheme, Osei Assibey Antwi, and his two deputies, accompanied by some other senior staff of the scheme, undertook working tours of some of the registration centres in the Greater Accra, Ashanti, Eastern, Bono, Central, Volta, Western and the rest of the regions in the north. These tours afforded the management the opportunity to assess the effectiveness of the innovation in the registration process, to determine any challenges, and to plan on how to further improve upon the system.

Some of the service persons who spoke to the team expressed satisfaction with the process and commended management for making their registration process stress free.

Challenges

The registration process has, however, recorded some challenges. The first two days of the registration came with unstable internet connectivity, especially in the Ashanti region, which was the hardest hit. This generally slowed down the registration process, and in some cases put pressure on the staff and national service persons as well.

Another challenge across board is refusal of some of the national service persons to accept their postings, citing various excuses ranging from lack of accommodation, to ill health situations of parents and guardians, which would make it difficult for them to travel “far away” from home.

Refusal of some of the heads of agencies to officially indicate that they have rejected the person has also become a huge challenge. This makes it difficult for the staff to authenticate whether or not a person has actually been rejected. These have thus, necessitated huge numbers of the national service persons to request for repostings.

These challenges notwithstanding, this year’s registration could simply and confidently be described as incident free and a huge success. Congratulations to all the national service persons who have, so far, conducted themselves well, even in the face of the challenges.

The writer is the Volta Regional Director and the Dean of Regional Directors of the National Service Scheme.