Department organises orientation for NSS personnel
By: Novire Kuuyizie Francis
The Department of Language and Communication Sciences at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) has organised an official orientation ceremony for the 2024/2025 batch of national service personnel (NSPs).
The event, which took place on Friday, October 18, 2024, sought to equip personnel who are serving as Teaching Assistants (TAs) at the department with the rules, roles, and responsibilities that come with serving the department.
In her opening remarks, the Head of the Department, Dr. (Mrs) Victoria O. Faleke admonished the service personnel to recognize that they have transitioned from being a student to becoming a teaching assistant.
She advised them to let go of some of the things they did as students, stressing that they were now part of the department in a different light, not as students anymore, but as staff.
“You are now part of a family that is no longer made up of students, represent the department well in all your doings, your dressing determines how you will be addressed, so let your dressing speak well of you”, she stated.
“There are two different CVs for every one of you; what you will write yourself and what others will write about you, which can make or mar you, so do well to make sure others have nothing but good things to write about you,” she stressed.
Speaking on the roles of Teaching Assistants in examination matters, the department’s exam officer, Dr. Obed Broohm entreated the personnel to operate with the highest integrity, taking caution and recognizing the fact that people’s future, the image of the department and the university at large were at stake.
“Of all the mistakes you can make, examination-related mistakes cannot be one of them, exam is a big deal, all sins could be pardoned but the unpardonable sin is to be caught complicit in exam malpractice,” he cautioned.
He added that there would be occasions where the students may deliberately attempt to compromise the integrity of TAs with gifts and tokens to get them to do underhand activities such as sharing exam questions or scores with them, and emphasized that such temptations should be resisted at all cost.
“You may be called upon to mark or grade scripts, during this time, avoid the urge to take snapshots of papers with your phones and most importantly, you are in no position to discuss or comment on exam results to any third party without authorization”, he added.
Among other things, the new batch was furnished information on the various offences according to the National Service Scheme Act, 198 (Act 426) and sanctions for offences such as evasion of service, desertion, absenteeism, etc.
Speaking on his experience as a National Service Person, Dr. Daniel Nkrumah highlighted that although experiences vary, if one was dedicated to the job and performed tasks diligently, one was likely to excel at his/her duties.
The 2024/2025 National Service year which commenced on October 1st, 2024 has graduates from across the country posted to various institutions (public and private/subvented and non-subvented) for a period of one year, between October 2024 and October 2025, a mandatory one-year service to the nation for all fresh graduates.