The hot topic of National Service (NS) - Why cannot monetize NS?

Recently, there have been numerous discussions on NS. A committee has been formed to strengthen NS and gather feedbacks from the public. As a guy who has served my 2 years NS and still serving as an nsmen for the next few years, I feel I have to give my views on this. There is always an urge to talk about issues like this.

The debate sparked off in the online blogging world and facebook also. It was posted by a blogger called Alvin Lim on his blog alvinology.com. The post was on a singaporean who gave up his citizenship and move to London. This interview was done by BBC. This was his exact words from the interview:

I was born and bred in Singapore but moved to the UK when I was 21 and eventually naturalised as a British citizen after seven years here - I am 37 today. I left Singapore because I had no faith in the government there. Singaporean males were discriminated against by the government because of the compulsory national service and many years of reservist obligations afterwards. That is compounded by the fact that the Singapore government is actively wooing skilled migrants to Singapore. Their "foreign talent" programme gives these migrants all kinds of advantages that locals are not entitled to. I gave two years and four months of my life to serve in the army and my reward is to be treated like a second-class citizen. I wasn't prepared to fight the system, so I simply left and settled in the UK instead. Alex Liang, London

The blog post on alvinology.com has garnered over 100000 views in one weekend and has 350 comments as of now. It has been shared on facebook over 8000 times.

I would say most guys will complain about NS in one way or another. How we lag behind others because of the 2 years NS. We would often compare ourselves against girls who have started working and earning much more than our NS allowance. Most girls would have been halfway through their university education when we finish serving the 2 years. Me and my army mates used to think how we're paid less than a bangala construction worker. The things we do in army sometimes are called sai kang which means shit work literally. Cleaning up the store, carrying heavy equipments, doing area cleaning. I think we're doing both the work of a construction worker and of a cleaner but paid much lesser than any of them.

Now, with more foreigners in our workforce, Singaporean men are unhappy also because of our reservist liabilities and RT trainings. All these takes up our time and we're affected in our performance at work. These are just some of the additional responsibilities we have to bear. Sometimes I do feel overloaded as I have to work from 8am-6pm, juggle with my part time studies twice a week attending lessons from 7pm-10pm and still have to be a part time soldier defending the nation. NS for Singaporeans and jobs for foreigners? You must have heard this before.

One slogan throughout the various discussions on NS caught my attention.It is the phrase that we should not monetize NS. The reason given is NS will lose its value if it is monetized. Aren't regulars paid well with big one time incentives when they sign on? So does this mean those who serve NS as regulars will not value NS more than conscripted NSFs who are only paid a small allowance? It seems quite weird to me that we cannot put monetary value on NS when we're in fact doing it already.

It came out yesterday on channel news asia that a proposal was made to let first generation PR serve NS also. It was commented that "we should not let first generation PR serve the same 2 years as Singaporeans as serving ns is a privilege that belongs to Singaporeans only. We should only let PRs serve on a voluntary basis." Singaporeans have to be forced but PRs have a choice? I guess if first generation PRs have to be forced to serve NS also, many will not want to apply for PR anymore.

Anyway, if you think this NS discussion is hot only now, think again. In actual fact it has been widely discussed more than 30 years ago. There is an elderly blogger who was enlisted into army in the late 1960s. These are the exact quote from his blog, goodmorningyesterday.blogspot.sg:

This post was posted back in 2006.

There's an interesting discussion going on about NS and foreign talents at Mr Wang Bakes Good Karma: Rethinking NS - Part 1 Strange that after 35 years, the issues are exactly the same. When I was balloted out and had my NS disrupted and joined the University of Spore in 1971, I was surrounded by mostly Malaysians in the U. (I was in the Engineering Faculty, and thus very few Spore girls). The kind of sentiments, resentment etc. were exactly the same as those expressed by many of Mr Wang's readers. Reminds me of the words of a song, "Some things will never change, that's just the way it is." Anyway, I did not participate in the discussion because I sense the generation gap is too big. Maybe some of you would like to go there join the discussion.

35 years ago its malaysians overcrowding our local universities. 35 years later, it became another country. I don't even have to mention the country and I'm sure you'd already know which country it is.

In his post, he mentioned another blogger called Mr Wang. Mr Wang wrote on some suggestions to improve the sentiments of NS and it was said to have been sent to the defence minister back then. When i read through, i'm surprised that some of the things have indeed changed compared to last time. Let me share it here.

1) Increase NSFs' pay
To my knowledge, i know NSF's pay have been adjusted up a couple of times. The current recruit pay is already more than $400. I do not know the exact figure but it is definitely higher than last time. Are people happy about it? I would say not really because we will compare against the pay in the job market out there. Most NSF are educated and if you're a diploma holder, the starting pay is about $1800. Even if Mindef increases to $1000 it is still low compared to outside. Is there financial loss? Definitely. Let's do the maths. If you earn $1800 as a diploma holder, in 2 years you will earn $43200. The NS pay if on average is $550 for NSF non commanders, you'll get $13200. The loss of potential income is 30k. I think that is a fair bit of money and can be used to pay for university course fees or down payment for housing loans for those who get married. No wonder few Singaporeans can get married and have children early.

2) NS for University Admission
This suggestion was to encourage universities to recognise NSFs achievements in military training as a bonus point for university admission. The argument was that CCAs and other leadership achievements are recognised for admissions. Why not military achievements? I'm not sure if this has been implemented yet but from what i know i think maybe not. The only university I know that recognises NS as work experience is unisim part time courses.

3) Insurance Benefits
It was said that in the event that a NSF dies during training, the compensation to the family member is only a few thousand dollars. It was suggested that SAF should buy life, disability and personal accident insurance for NSFs. This has been done already. We now have the famous Aviva insurance which we're familiar with. The payout is at least $100,000 if a NSF dies during training. However, not exactly SAF buys for us. Its heavily subsidised so NSF pays about $10 plus per month for it.


4) Making NS a Worthwhile Experience
It was suggested to put NSF into vocations that is related to their qualifications so that they get relevant work experience through NS. In this way, they can get higher pay when they go out to work after NS. For my case, i got a vocation related to my diploma. Many of my friends who were in the same course as me ended up as the same vocation as me. I guess Mindef has already taken into consideration this when they put soldiers into different vocations. This is a good thing. However, from my experience, companies outside still don't recognise NS as work experience. Even when my vocation is related to my qualification, i did not get a head start in my career. My job was related to what i learned in NS. I did not get a higher pay than other female employees also. The case that guys will get a higher pay compared to girls because of NS did not apply to me at all. I'm not sure about you?


I'm glad that i've served my 2 years and i would say its a good experience for me. Many good friendships made indeed. However, after 2 years, i'm still subjected to NS duties for another 10 years. Need to pass IPPT every year. Need to notify for overseas trip. Go for reservist once a year. Report for ops manning once in awhile. Most guys would agree that IPPT is the killer. Cannot pass it then have to go for 20 RT trainings. I heard during reservist that the passing rate for IPPT is only 50%. You'll know from the crowded RT sessions every week.

The government is trying to recognise nsmen efforts currently. We've received NS45 vouchers, payments to cpf account at different stages of ns cycle etc. NS will still be here for as long as we live. The same complains will still surface out in every generations. What I know is our NS life is much better than those who've enlisted in the early days. What we hate is the regimentation and the feeling of having to be forced to do things we don't like. Being forced is never a good feeling. No matter how much it has improved, regimentation is still there. I have friends who are being called up for reservist at a short notice. Sometimes only 2 weeks notice and they have to cancel their pre-planned overseas trip without any refund. So far no such incidents for me as i get my notifications of call ups 6 months ahead. Some units may have lapses in their system. 

Kids become rebellious and leave home when they are being forced too much. Singaporeans leave the country because they are being forced to serve ns. There will never be the love of a home with regimentation being imposed. This is why Singaporeans feel less belonged in this country. The Singapore spirit is slowly fading away......

I hope the strengthen ns review ongoing now can address these issues to their best effort. They should look at the online feedbacks too. Most people express their true feelings on the online world.