The Minister of Education, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, has stated that the greatest national service scheme that any tertiary student can benefit from is getting a job while on campus; hence, the need for the National Service Scheme Secretariat (NSS) to innovate in creating opportunities for the youth.
According to the sector minister, a transformative education regime means it is not enough for tertiary students to bag a degree or diploma and be hoping for a huge organisation to accept them for employment after national service with them. Rather, these students should secure a job even in their final year – while still on campus.
“The greatest national service is for students to secure a job while they are on campus. So, NSS Secretariat should be looking at their mandate and how to work with companies to get them into partnership with the universities in that regard,” he said.
The minister made these remarks at the National Education Week (NEW) celebration held at the Accra International Conference Centre (AICC) on the theme: ‘Re-Assessing Educational Policies for Effective Service Delivery and National Transformation’.
He was of the view that countries like China and Japan can produce and manufacture wonderful technological devices and lead innovation because students can experiment practically in school and even gain employment still in school, and that can be done here.
According to him, a war-torn country like Vietnam has one of the best educational systems in the world, producing 100,000 engineers a year while Ghana – with all the peace and stability – is doing nothing close to that.
He, therefore, iterated that the transformation that his administration is trying to achieve in the sector is aiming at removing bottlenecks and ensuring the country can produce more engineers and mathematicians to compete on the global stage.
“Per the Vietnam statistics, Ghana, with a population of 31 million, is supposed to be producing at least 33,000 engineers a year but currently doing 6,500, which is underproducing. It is sad and therefore, I urge players in the sector to put in place measures to scale up the production of engineers in the country,” he stated.
