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Only 2,210 people have so far been deployed as National Service Personnel for 2013/2014 in the Volta Region as against 6,000 requests. This leaves an alarming deficit of nearly half of demand, a situation which is reflecting in empty classrooms in rural schools especially. Mr Gabriel Nyorkeh, Volta Regional Director of the National Service Scheme (NSS) was addressing scores of Service Personnel posted to communities in the Ho Municipal Area at an orientation in Ho on Tuesday. �Partners, organizations are still running after us because staff needed to be augmented and classrooms filled,� he said. Mr Nyorkeh said the Regional Secretariat was striving to find and tackle concerns that deter people from accepting postings to the Volta Region on National Service. He said in Ho, houses had been rented to serve as hostels and that plans were advanced to begin construction of permanent hostels for National Service Personnel in selected areas across the region. Mr Nyorkeh said the National Service Volta Regional Secretariat�s agricultural project was progressing fast, acreage under cultivation increasing from 78 last year to 200 this year. He said the secretariat was expecting a bumper maize harvest from the farm located at Abutia-Kpota in the Ho-West District. Mr Nyorkeh said it was exciting that some of agricultural professionals who worked on the farm as Service Personnel were currently engaged in commercial farming, instead of looking for white-collar jobs. He expressed displeasure about parents discouraging their children from taking postings in the rural areas, saying that those were the places where the capacities of their children could be tested better. �Please support your children to venture out into the rural areas to learn, die a little for Ghana and make an impact on the development processes of the country,� Mr Nyorkeh said. He also complained about poor evaluation processes of the user organizations, making it difficult for the Service Secretariat to monitor performance of personnel. Mr Hayford Bredzei, Ho Municipal Director of the NSS, said Service Personnel were supposed to be change agents who must positively affect communities and organizations posted to. �Go beyond sitting in the offices to make an impact wherever you find yourself,� he stated. Mrs Dora Humado, Ho Municipal Director of Education, said National Service Persons sent to the classrooms should demonstrate love for teaching and handle their pupils carefully. Mr Bright Agbegoe, a Laboratory Technician posted to Dzolo-Gborgame Junior High School, was adjudged the best National Service Person in the Volta Region in teaching last year and given a certificate and a double-door refrigerator while Miss Charlotte Onumah, a Marketing professional who was best in community work got a flat-screened television. There were talks on health and the importance of the National Health Insurance Scheme and personnel without the Health Insurance Cards registered under a special arrangement.