On Monday, in a Parliamentary reply Minister for Defence Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan stated that the abolished National Service Programme or the Program Latihan Khidmat Negara will be reintroduced with a budget of not more than RM100 millions per year.
This had attracted many views and opinions, including constructive criticisms reminding the Government “to get it right this time”. This includes a comment by a retired Brigadier-General Arshad Raji that the previous PLKN incarnation was a waste of time and money and called for the Government to study in-depth the abolished national service programme as there were a lot of weaknesses in the programme.
In my opinion, if the aim of PLKN is to foster unity and groom nation builders then it must start from school, for history to be taught for the purpose of education and not to put down another, to inculcate critical thinking through teaching human rights, including sex education and gender studies, as well as financial management and political literacy.
While it is important to use the example of other countries like the United Kingdom, France and Singapore who all have allocated 2 years of the training – UK and France from the ages 15 to 17 and Singapore from 16 to 18, a 45 day training will not cut it if we want a sturdy “Return of Investment” seeing the PLKN is an investment for youths of today to be more patriotic, to be the catalyst and adhesive for nation building.
A sound ROI for the future of Malaysia lies in the knowledge, life experiences and encounters that we nourish and provide for our youth of today and it is less effective if the starting line is after they leave school and taking a step into adulthood, touching the age of 18 where they can vote, marry, and be viewed under the law as a major and no longer a minor.
In the UK, the National Citizen Service (NCS) was “designed specially for 16 and 17 year olds.. to engage, unite and empower young people, building your confidence so you can go out there and achieve your dreams, no matter where you’re from or what your background is”. It is managed by a trust which gets Government financial support and with cross party support from charities, football clubs, private sectors, local council, schools and colleges and is now a national institution in the UK.
We cannot have knee jerk reactions to resetting PLKN if we have not racial and gender barriers in schools. Another point to note is that although there was a downward trend of school dropouts from 2019 to 2023 which is from 0.12% to 0.07%with more boys than girls, the reasons behind them was an array of reasons ranging from being not interested in school, family problems, work life, marriage and logistics in term of the distance of the school from home. Therefore, I welcome the Government’s study into compulsory secondary education or optional.
Having said that, I wish to see a generation of youths of Malaysia who are well read, mature, able to navigate through critical thinking and the challenge of “information” at their fingertips.
The future youths of Malaysia don’t lie in the syllabus of PLKN alone and neither should PLKN be the sole promoter of unity and cohesiveness in nation building but as a bolster for discipline, patriotism and equipped with day-to-day survival skills.
Teresa Kok