By Laudia Sawer, GNA
Tema, Nov. 14, GNA – The Nation Builders Corps (NaBCO) Trainees had been urged to use the opportunity provided by government through the special initiatives to fulfil the mandate for the national development and build personal brand identity for the job market.
NABCO is one of government’s flagship programmes aimed at providing jobs under the seven modules of the programme for the large number of unemployed graduates in the country.
Mr Percy Opata, Tema Metropolitan NABCO Coordinator, gave the advice when he called on Mr Francis Ameyibor, Tema Regional Manager of the Ghana News Agency to deliberate on how best to collaborate to achieve the objectives of the two institutions.
Mr Opata said the government was investing heavily through the NABCO Trainees in the youth of the country, so the trainees must take advantage of the opportunity to acquire other skills which will open wider job prospects for them, stressing that, “The State is helping to shape the youths for the job world so they must work had to improve their market value.
“They must build themselves and make their names a brand name wherever they have been posted, having at the back of their minds that their outputs were what will talk for them and serve as a testimony for them in the world of jobs”.
He therefore encouraged the NaBCO Trainees to also take advantage of the newly introduced online courses to acquire other needed employable and self-development skills.
Mr Opata also urged leadership of government institutions that Trainees had been posted to, to apply the same laws and treatments accorded permanent staff to the NaBCO Trainees, reminding them that “It is the same taxes collected from all Ghanaians that is being used to pay their stipends”.
On monitoring issues, he disclosed that apart from the monthly attendance form that trainees were supposed to filled, which must be endorsed by their supervisors, the NABCO Coordinators periodically visit the various institutions for monitoring in addition to some headcounts to ensure that Trainees were not paid for no work done.
Mr Ameyibor said the Tema GNA Office was ready to collaborate with institutions both governmental and private for the total development of the country, “the media has a major role to play for the national cohesion and growth”.
The Tema Regional Manager explained that GNA was still relevant to the wider national communication system; “we are therefore opening new business minded window of media practice to ensure that we feed the nation with truthful, balance and accurate news in the midst of social media invasion of the traditional news space”.
Mr Ameyibor noted that GNA will continue to play its role as a dynamic strategy state actor, to harness the information arm of the state, to build a viable and united nation-state.
Touching on the issue of the NaBCO Trainees, Mr Ameyibor urged the trainees to consider the Government initiative as a huge opportunity to prepare them for the job market.
“Government through the initiative has opened a major door to the beneficiaries. Consider it as a three-year capacity training programme to improve your status.
“You are a worker and must integrate into the operational environment you are posted to, you must justify the investment, and work efficiently, whilst adhering to rules and regulations of the institution”.
He also appealed to institutions using NaBCO Trainees to develop on the job training programme, which would help them integrate smoothly and quickly into the new working environment for mutual benefit.
He called for checks and balances to ensure that they did not take the stipends, while sneaking in and out of the companies they have been attached to.
On the need for collaboration between the two agencies, he said GNA and NABCO were both public institutions that work for the interest of the state, therefore “it is our mandate to project every Government initiative to accelerate national development.
“As a news agency we cannot sit on the fence, we are an integral part of every government’s communication strategy and serving as a link between the government and people”.
Mr Ameyebor stated that there was the need for government establishments to take advantage of state media institutions to project their good works instead of waiting for their occasional seemingly negative acts to hit the front pages before they rush to undertake damage control.
GNA
Read Full Story
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
Instagram
Google+
YouTube
LinkedIn
RSS