National Service Training Programme (Malaysia)
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Source : IHS Jane's |
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The National Service Training Programme, or Latihan Khidmat Negara (PLKN), is Malaysia's national service program. The conscripts are 18-year-old youths that are selectively drafted. The three-month program, which started in December 2003, began as way to encourage friendship between youths of certain ages from different races and ethnic groups and address concerns that the country's various groups were becoming increasingly isolated from one another. This program was halted for one year in 2015 due to the federal government's efforts to cut spending.
The national service program, first proposed in late 2002, came to committee the following year, and was finally implemented in 2004. Initial proposals envisaged drafting all youths of a certain age, but later lack of resources led to restricting the numbers of the intake. The program, planned around a two-year program, was later reduced to a year, then to six months, and then to its present[update] three-month length.
Conscription has long been a sensitive political issue in Malaysia because of the ethnic divisions of the country. Proponents of National Service promoted bonding the youth of Malaysia together and creating a Malaysian nation, as the problem of racial polarisation was found to pervade educational institutions in Malaysia.
In late December 2003, the names of 85,000 conscripts for the first National Service program was made public. The government announced that these youths were randomly selected out of the roughly 450,000 youths born in 1986, through a computerised process. Conscripts are 18 years of age and picked from a national database that includes all citizens registered with a Malaysian ID card, whether born locally or overseas. Conscripts were informed of their participation in the program by mail at the address listed on their identification card. They are also able to check their status on the program's website, or by SMS. Lists of conscripts names and ID numbers are also published in major newspapers.
Deserters and draft dodgers are subject to punishment of a fine of up to but not exceeding RM 3000, and/or up to six months of jail. Deferrals to a later date are allowed. Exclusion from the program requires that the conscript fall under one of the following ten categories:
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