Trainees Must Report To NS Camps On Jan 1st. A Heartless Order.

National Service trainees posted to the southern states will have to report to their camps on Jan 1st.

National Service Training Department director-general Abdul Halim Abdul Hamid said the training camps were unlikely to be affected by floods as they were on high ground.

"Since the floods started, we have been monitoring these camps in Johor, Malacca and Negri Sembilan. The camps are safe and have been spared by floods," he said during a Press conference here yesterday.

"We have prepared alternative plans, so there should not be any excuse for trainees not to turn up for registration," he said.

Abdul Halim said the 34,313 trainees doing their three-month stint from January to March must be assembled at their pick-up points on this Monday.

"From there, they will be ferried by bus to their respective camps."

Out of the total, 3,413 will either be those from the peninsula doing their training in Sabah and Sarawak or youth from the two states coming over to the peninsula.

NS Training Council chairman Tan Sri Lee Lam Thye told parents not to drop their children at the training camps.

This was because some of them arrived late during previous stints and had caused a delay in the orientation programme.(NST)

****** This is a thoughtless and heartless directive by the big boys at the National Service Training Department. How do they know what's happening in the home front of each of these young pupils? At this time of stress what with the floods and all, how will their state of mind be? Would they prove more useful helping out at home than spending their time in a camp while being worried sick about what the rest of the family is undergoing?

There should be some leeway for those who have been directly affected by the floods and instead of badgering them to turn up at some faraway camp, it is best to leave the decision for the time being whether to report at the camp now or later to the parents. This to me would seem a more sensible approach than the one-shoe-fits-all order issued by the D-G.

Image - Sam's Digital Shoe Box