HH Celebrates Zambia National Service Golden Jubilee

Today we officiated at the Zambia National Service (ZNS) Golden Jubilee celebrations in Lusaka's Chongwe District under the theme "Celebrating 50 Years of Rendering Unbroken Service and Fostering Development to Our Motherland Zambia".

Some of us have enduring memories of the Zambia National Service, where we underwent 6 months military training upon graduation from Secondary schools. This policy initiated by Dr. Kenneth David Kaunda shaped us and the youth of those days in appreciating a culture of hard work, the purpose of strong discipline, the need for patience, and the importance of patriotism to our nation.

To this day, ZNS continues to play a pivotal role in skills development of our youth, and in that regard we urge them to create a pool of talented engineers, agriculturalists and agricultural economists that will help the country in optimising the production and distribution of food and fibre products for local consumption, as well as for the export market. We also support their endeavour to commercialise some service production ventures as a way to increase our country's economic activities.

To build a strong generation of resilient, productive, young people, our government is considering reviving the school leavers programme on voluntary basis.

We congratulate the Zambia National Service on reaching this milestone and urge them to continue playing a strong role in maintaining the peace and territorial integrity of our nation.

Hakainde Hichilema,

President of the Republic of Zambia