Facilitating NSmen's Pursuit of Undergraduate Studies

Mr Zainal Sapari asked the Minister for Defence (a) what is the average time interval between graduation from Junior College and Polytechnic to enlistment into National Service; (b) what measures has the Ministry taken to minimise the time interval between completion of National Service and enrolment for undergraduate studies; and (c) for the past three years, how many NSmen were not granted disruption for them to pursue their undergraduate studies at the local Universities and what were the reasons for not granting the disruption.

National Service (NS) enlistment is carried out over four quarterly intakes starting in December, March, June and September. In general, Junior College (JC) students enlist in the December and March intakes and wait about a few weeks to three months after their JC studies. Polytechnic students who complete their studies in March are enlisted in the June and September intakes, and wait about three to six months. More than half (about 55%) of JC and Polytechnic students are enlisted in the earlier intake. A small number of National Servicemen are enlisted later than their educational peers as further investigations for medical conditions are required to determine their physical employment status.

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Disruption from full-time NS is granted to enable those who are enlisted in the later intake to enter University at the same time as their school cohort who were enlisted earlier, to maintain cohort equity. Based on this criteria, over the past three years, we have granted disruption to an average of 600 full-time National Servicemen (NSFs) each year for local and overseas studies. Those who did not satisfy the criteria of cohort equity were not granted disruption. MINDEF does not track the number of such cases.

MINDEF regularly reviews measures to reduce the time interval between completion of full-time NS and local University studies. However, some factors are beyond MINDEF's control, such as the start date of universities and the place of study which the NSmen choose. Generally, Australian universities begin term in February, while US and UK universities begin term in September and October respectively. Because of this wide variability, it may not always be possible for SAF to align its full-time NS period to suit the needs of all National Servicemen, as SAF must first ensure that its operational readiness is not compromised.