Assessing the effectiveness of the online registration process of the national service scheme in the Ashanti region of Ghana

This study sought to examine the effectiveness of the Ghana National Service Scheme on-line registration process of service personnel in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. The National Service Scheme introduces the online posting-checker system in May 2007 to ensure that registration and posting of prospective service personnel was made easier, faster, more accurate and more convenient. However, the system is fraught with many problems and other shortcomings hence the commencement of this study.

The National Service Scheme plays a crucial role in augmenting the manpower requirements of the country, particularly in the public and civil service. It was established by The National Service Scheme Decree, 1973 (NRCD. 208) which was repealed by the Ghana National Service Scheme Act, 1980 (ACT 426) assented on 23rd September, 1980.

The National Service Scheme is an agency established under the ministry of education with the mandate of mobilizing and deploying Ghanaian newly qualified university graduates and diplomats on national priority development programs that contribute to improving the quality of life of the ordinary Ghanaian for a year of mandatory national service. Hence the basic goal was for the service personnel to exercise their civil responsibility to the nation through service.

The objective of this study is to ascertain whether the introduction of the online registration for newly recruited national service personnel has helped to improve upon the scheme as well as discuss the features of the online registration process and security problems it pose. In conducting the study data was collected from two hundred respondents in the Ashanti Region through the use of a simple random sampling.

Some key findings that came out of the study were, impersonation of personnel, a completed enrollment can be accessed by other persons, although a unique personal code or number is issued to all national service persons, the majority of them obtained this code through the school notice board, the security measures that ensure that the rightful person gets assess to PIN codes are done haphazardly without any form of verification. It was concluded that since it is not best for a completed enrollment form to be accessed by another, the online registration has increased impersonation and need to be addressed.