The National Service Scheme (NSS) has partnered with Canadian firm ‘I Am Worth It’ (IAWI) to train some top Management members, Regional Directors and personnel with soft skills that would aid their personal growth.

The initiative is in line with the Scheme’s new policy of creating permanent employment for service personnel and equipping others with needed skills to create their own companies.

Under the theme, “Deployment for Employment; the New NSS Approach to Development,” the Secretariat has held a two-day training workshop in Accra to make skills needed in the labour market available to personnel before they exit their service.

The ‘I Am Worth It’ project is also meant for providing soft skills training, innovative business skills and personal development. It will also offer 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.

Addressing the participants, the lead consultant who doubles as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Project, Tammy Sherger, said their proprietary methods of teaching soft skills are designed to work in the day-to-day real world of business, career and life.

“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 enhance economic empowerment, well-being and long-term employment for youth in Ghana, thus have gainfully employed youth with the skills to industrialize and move Ghana beyond aid.”

In a speech read on his behalf, the Education Minister, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, commended the Executive Director and Management of NSS 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 Management to contribute in diverse ways to ensure the realisation of the repositioning drive spearheaded by the Executive Director.

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

Meanwhile, the Executive Director of the Scheme, Osei Assibey Antwi, reckoned that it has become necessary 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.

"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, announced that the Scheme would be 50 years next year.

He said it is crucial at this stage to put in measures that would sustain the positive impact the Scheme has had on the personnel deployed over the years to tell its successful and positive story.