The National Service Authority (NSA) has pushed back against complaints over registration difficulties, saying tertiary institutions are largely responsible for errors in the personal details submitted for National Service registration.
Deputy Director General of Programmes and Operations at the NSA, Lieutenant Colonel Moses Dok Nach Kpeungu, said the Authority only works with data submitted by accredited tertiary institutions and has no mandate to alter students’ names or dates of birth.
Speaking on Good Afternoon Ghana on Metro TV on Monday, September 7, he explained that institutions accredited by the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) are required to submit the class lists of their final-year students to the NSA.
“Now, every institution, once you have accreditation with GTEC, you are supposed to submit the class list of your final year students,” he said.
According to him, problems arise when the information submitted by the institutions does not correspond with the details on a student’s Ghana Card.
“National service, by this act, we don’t have the mandate to correct your date of birth or your name. It is your school that is supposed to correct it,” he said.
Lt Col Dok Nach Kpeungu said the NSA had this year given tertiary institutions an opportunity to review and correct students’ details before the information was used for the registration process.
He said the Authority also wrote to all tertiary institutions on June 9, 2026, giving them sufficient time to verify the information.
“We sent a letter to all tertiary institutions on the 9th of June, 2026. Three clear months,” he said.
He added that officers from the Authority visited about 152 tertiary institutions to educate students and administrators on the registration process and the need to verify their details.
“The team that I led, we visited almost about 152 tertiary institutions for orientation. And I made emphasis that this year, this time around, check all your details before we open the portal,” he said.
Name arrangement causing registration failures
Lt Col Dok Nach Kpeungu also explained that even the order in which a student’s names are entered can cause the registration system to reject an application.
Using the host Desmond Okraku Danso as an example, he said if the name is arranged differently from the records submitted by the institution, the system could flag it as a mismatch.
He said the issue is particularly important because the information submitted by the tertiary institution is what the NSA uses for the registration process.
“The schools failed to do that. You have the leverage to edit, the schools failed to do that,” he said.
NSA concerned about students trying to alter ages
The NSA official also raised concerns about some mature students allegedly changing their ages to meet university admission requirements and later attempting to reverse those details when registering for National Service.
He said such cases should not be treated as ordinary data corrections.
“Most of them are regular or direct entry. They are not qualified. But when you go, when you look at the matured entry, probably the age will be able, you understand. So most of them, what they do is that they increase their ages and meet the requirements,” he said.
He described attempts to subsequently reverse such information as fraudulent.
“It is fraud. You lied about your age,” he said.
Lt Col Dok Nach Kpeungu said the recurring complaints about registration mismatches should therefore not automatically be blamed on the National Service Authority, insisting that students and their institutions have responsibilities to ensure their records are accurate before registration.
“It’s not about national service,” he said.
