The National Service Scheme (NSS) has introduced an online portal called ‘Flair’ to ensure personnel acquire employable skills and establish their own enterprises as part of efforts to reduce unemployment.

The employability platform will also offer user agencies the opportunity to make requests for graduates with specific skills or training to undertake National Service at their end.

It also offers stakeholders the opportunity to benefit from skill-matching information, which includes a course of study or profession and serves as a database that provides information on both national service personnel and user agencies.

This was announced by the Executive Director of NSS, Osei Assibey Antwi, at a user agency stakeholder meeting at the Cedi Conference Hall, University of Ghana.

He described the user agencies as formidable partners of the National Service Scheme, saying they can help the Scheme in attaining the vision of “Deployment for Employment.”

Mr Assibey Antwi noted that NSS is working assiduously with user agencies and other partners to ensure that the one-year service period is used to provide top-up training for the graduates.

This, he explained, is to ensure that service personnel who undertake their service at other organisations gain skills that would make them employable.

“The shift in paradigm from purely deploying personnel for a year to an agency that offers permanent employment opportunities, and provides entrepreneurial and employment skills for the youth, has become necessary due to the increasing unemployment rate,” Mr Assibey Antwi said.

Beginning the next national service year, personnel who would be posted to educational institutions would be given at least a month’s training before they begin teaching.

“There is a law in this country which frowns on teaching without pedagogic training. We have linked up with the National Teaching Council (NTC), which is developing the curriculum that would be used for the short training,” Mr Assibey Antwi added.

Aside the training, NSS is arranging for funding to provide a 14-month online training that would give personnel a professional diploma certificate in teaching.

The National Service Scheme recently launched its new vision of ‘Deployment for Employment.’

Since its launch, it has also discussed its new vision with the Ghana Employers Association and the Association of Ghana Industries.