Speech by Dr Ng Eng Hen, Minister for Defence, at Press Conference by the Committee to Strengthen National Service

Thank you for being here. I am here together with the Committee members of the Committee to Strengthen National Service (CSNS). We have completed, almost after a year, our deliberations and discussions and the finalised report, it would have been distributed to you. What I intend to do is not to go into the details because it would have been presented to you. But instead, take you through the thinking, the motivation and the processes that guided our final recommendations and then after which 2M and MOS will add aspects from their Working Groups. Let me first place on record my deep most thanks to Committee members because they worked very hard, including my two chairpersons of the Working Groups and their Committee members. 

Let me start by saying that it was a very enriching year for MINDEF and the Committee. It was a very good opportunity for us to be able to engage Singaporeans from all walks of life and talk about National Service. 

Keeping NS and Singapore Strong

In the recent opening of Parliament, the President pointed out that Singapore is at an important moment in our history but that the environment had changed. Indeed, we live in a very different Asia compared to 50 years ago when Singapore was formed and National Service and the SAF were formed. 

Within Singapore, there has been a fundamental change too. Families are smaller, and by 2020, all our full-time national servicemen would have been born in the 21st century. They will be shaped by different forces compared to previous generations. They would have been born and bred in an affluent Singapore with no direct memories of our early struggles. They would have been net natives, socialised to global trends and influences and therefore with lifestyles, outlook and expectations and aspirations different from previous generations. 

Amid these changes, one constant must remain - we must ensure that NS remains relevant and responsive to a new generation who will defend Singapore. This was the prime reason why we started the Committee to Strengthen National Service - to try to keep one constant amid all these changes. 

Therefore we needed this process to be a ground-up, because NS depends on all Singaporeans. We started by commissioning Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) to conduct an independent survey. We wanted to find out what do people now think of NS and the support we have. They have released their report. We were very gratified that after 50 years of independence and 47 years of National Service, commitment to NS remains very strong, indeed, nearly universal. 98% of the respondents acknowledged that NS is crucial for national defence and for securing Singapore's peace and prosperity. And these findings gave us confidence about Singapore's future. 

If you ask why there is this strength of support for NS, I would say that it comes from each of the 900,000 NSmen who have performed NS. Each one that completed his duty sets an example of duty, honour and country for successive generations to emulate. And the deep foundations, if you like, have been laid by every NS soldier - on their beliefs, their sweat and blood of NSmen. 

Indeed, during the process, we talked about NS and benefits and recognition, many Singaporeans argued in our Focus Group Discussions and on different other platforms, argued against giving servicemen too many benefits, lest it dilutes and even adulterates what it means to serve the country. I think there is wisdom and virtue in this advice. We will provide more benefits for National Servicemen, as I will announce later, but these benefits must never, never ever become a monetary transaction for services rendered. 

A Strong and Capable SAF to Defend Singapore

We spent the last year asking Singaporeans from all walks of life how NS could be improved. The Committee members here spent many hours engaging the public, and listening to ideas and views. More than 40,000 people responded and gave very good suggestions. I would say it was a very fruitful effort and I want to thank all participants for their time. Many of the suggestions which I would now talk about came out from their views. 

So after a year of discussions, what did Singaporeans say? There was a recurring theme centred on values. Singaporeans, young and old, I think are alive to the fact that there is a generational change on-going in our society. But they still believe that NS, as an entrenched national institution, should be the crucible in which values are forged to congeal our society and keep it cohesive and strong. We liked this feedback because it was consistent with what we thought NS should be - meaning the Committee members, MINDEF and SAF. 

We debated how do you forge values during NS and we came to the recognition that it was role models who transmitted values best. Values are better caught than taught. This is the reason why the Committee decided to propose raising a larger core of professional trainers - 1,100 more in SAF, 230 more in SPF and SCDF to make the NS training system more effective, and inculcate values and the ethos of NS in future generations. We must do this right, and I think it will reap dividends for years to come. 

That was the first recommendation which I shared in terms of the thinking and motivation. We also heard from servicemen who wanted to do more. And the Committee recognise that our servicemen are better educated and have varied strengths and passions. We responded to this urge to do more by recommending improving the matching of servicemen to vocations, by tapping on pre-existing skills. Better still, give National Servicemen the option to indicate their vocation preference. We felt that there was scope for our full-time national servicemen to take on more leadership roles because they are better educated. The Committee, therefore, is recommending that the percentage of officers and specialists increase from its current 30% to 40%. 

Through this process, through this year, we also met with many, who do not have NS obligations, but wanted to contribute to national defence. Some felt that women, new citizens and 1st Generation Permanent Residents (PRs) should be made to do NS, just like male citizens and 2nd Generation PRs. There were a few valid arguments there, but most accepted the view that it would be difficult for those who came to Singapore late as working adults to serve. Moreover, NS must be for a real and critical need to defend Singapore, neither tokenistic nor symbolic. The Committee therefore recommended that the SAF set up a Volunteer Corps to allow those who do not have NS duties to defend Singapore too. 

Committee members also took to heart the feedback about national service administration - before, during and after national service. What they were saying was that, "we support NS whether it is NSmen, families or employers, we support NS. But administrative inefficiencies made it challenging for NSmen to juggle NS duties with work and family commitments." For full-time national serviceman this was a recurrent feedback that the so called wait time before enlistment and after completing full time National Service could be improved especially for those who were pursuing further studies. 

The Committee is therefore recommending to reduce wait time before enlistment. Currently about 45% of full-time national servicemen start NS within 4 months either after completing ITE, Poly or A Levels. The Committee is recommending that the SAF could improve by enlisting 90% of pre-enlistees within 4 months after their post-secondary studies. From 45%, we are asking the SAF, SCDF and SPF to improve by enlisting NSmen, 90% of NSmen within 4 months. This is a big administrative recommendation and but the Committee felt that 4 months was a reasonable period and that the maximum wait for anyone about to do NS should not be more than 6 months. 

Singaporeans also felt that transition to work and further studies after full-time National Service could be improved. The Committee therefore recommends that MINDEF, the SPF and SCDF, work with MOE, the tertiary institutions and the economic agencies to facilitate a smoother and shorter transition to work and studies after National Service. 

We also recommend that the skills that servicemen pick up during their National Service should be accredited, because to us it makes sense, it brings value to our National Serviceman and our workforce. So for example, NSmen who serve as signal operators, security, medical, communications, transport, health, fire-fighting personnel all have skills that should be employable in civilian life. 

The next set of feedback we got were around hygiene factors and in two particular aspects were travel restrictions and IPPT. It was a common feedback. For travel restrictions, the Committee felt that with the wide acceptance of National Service, with more and more Singaporeans understanding what National Service is and supporting National Service, that the need for travel notifications can be reduced. 

For IPPT, the Committee feels that while we should maintain fitness standards, we should also adjust requirements for preparing for IPPT. That these requirements should take into account the increasing family and work commitments that the NSmen have. Therefore we are recommending that NSmen be given a longer period to prepare for IPPT, whether it is through IPT or personal training. 

Let me talk about recognition. On recognition the Committee felt that because family size is getting smaller, or has become smaller, this has resulted in increased dependence on our NSmen, whether it is their parents that they have to support or their own families or their children. We therefore recommend increasing the recognition benefits for NSmen. This is to respond to the fact that opportunity costs have gone up. But as we are recommending increased benefits, the Committee members would like to reiterate that once again, that these benefits for National Service must never dilute the spirit of service. 

NS recognition benefits must reflect the correct values of duty, honour and country. And they must be given and received in this spirit. So to achieve this, the Committee recommends that MINDEF revamps the existing NSRA which was National Service Recognition Awards into the NS HOME Awards. HOME stands for Housing, Medical and Education Awards. This will strengthen NSmen's stake in Singapore through housing, education and healthcare provisions. The Committee recommends that the NS HOME Awards be enhanced by an additional $6,000 to be given in Medisave Grants for healthcare over three NS milestones. The current value is $9,000 and $10,500, so this is $6,000 on top of, in addition to the $9,000 and $10,500. 

The Committee also recommends providing life and accident insurance coverage of up to $150,000 each for our national servicemen, during their full-time NS or the period of their ORNS call-ups. 

As the President said, for a strong defence, National Servicemen deserve support from the wider community. The Committee recommends that we step up this support by restructuring ACCORD, Advisory Council on Community Relations in Defence into three new councils to deepen engagement with NS stakeholders, instead of just one ACCORD council, we are recommending that we have three new councils which reflect employers and businesses, educational institutions as well as family and the community. 

Let me conclude. After a year of very engaging and fruitful discussions with Singaporeans, we have finalised and now put up our recommendations. The CSNS recommendations are a comprehensive package of significant measures to strengthen National Service for future generations and provide Singapore with a strong defence. As we said in the outset we look for recommendations that first of all strengthen Singapore, strengthen National Service, and empower our National Serviceman to do more. The Committee strongly believes that this sets of recommendations are comprehensive, some of them will effect fundamental change, but in the end I think if we do it well, we will end up with a National Service system and a strong SAF that all of us will be proud of because we will believe that it can defend Singapore well. Thank you.