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NS pre-enlistees can indicate vocation of choice from year-end

SINGAPORE — From the end of this year, National Service pre-enlistees will be able to indicate their interest in any of over 30 vocations in three services, as part of efforts to encourage full-time national servicemen (NSFs) to take greater ownership of their responsibilities during their NS stint.

SINGAPORE —  From the end of this year, National Service pre-enlistees will be able to indicate their interest in any of over 30 vocations in three services, as part of efforts to encourage full-time national servicemen (NSFs) to take greater ownership of their responsibilities during their NS stint.

The three services are the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF), the Singapore Police Force and the Singapore Civil Defence Force.

While the Defence Ministry (Mindef) will try to match individuals to vocations based on their interests and aptitudes, operational requirements will remain the primary consideration, said Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen.

“We will try to (match) as many as possible, but (with) the caveat that the entirety of the unit’s mission and capability must not be compromised. I think (we) will increase ownership and match capability with the duties of (NSFs),” Dr Ng said during a media interview ahead of the annual Singapore Armed Forces Day on Friday.

He added that some of the “tougher” vocations have shown up as the most popular ones in a pilot survey.

More details on the respective vocations will be available on the Central Manpower Base’s website by the third quarter of this year. The new scheme applies to those enlisting at the end of 2017 onwards.

An NS Mark accreditation scheme will also be launched in August to recognise organisations with pro-NS policies and human resource practices. Organisations with a higher level of support for NS will progress to the higher-tiered NS Mark (Gold).

Accredited organisations will be featured in Mindef collaterals, and other print, online and social media platforms. They will also be earmarked as “preferred partners” at career fairs organised by Mindef and the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Vocation-matching and the NS Mark are among the 30 proposals put up by the Committee to Strengthen National Service (CSNS) after a year-long engagement exercise which gathered feedback from more than 40,000 members of the public on how to improve NS. 

The NS Mark will be the 24th CSNS recommendation to be implemented in August. 

Those that have been rolled out since June 2014 include the establishment of the SAF Volunteer Corps, increasing the number of regular trainers at the Basic Military Training Centre, and the recently announced free life and personal accident insurance coverage for servicemen.

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