The army will complete a report in late September on the effectiveness of a program aimed at turning non-commissioned officers (NCOs) into the backbone of the armed services, army officials said yesterday.
The report, not to be made public, will be a comprehensive review of the program, which is known as the "NCO system's strengthening project."
The project, which was designed to strengthen the roles and functions of NCOs in the three services, especially the army, so as to make them replace officers as the actual executors of orders and routine operations in units of all levels, was the brainchild of ex-chief of the general staff Admiral Liu Ho-chien (劉和謙) in the early 1990s.
The officers would then be responsible mainly for office work or staff advisory jobs. The arrangement was intended to make a clear distinction between the officers and NCOs in their fields.
As the NCOs were given greater responsibility, they were entitled to better treatment such as personal living quarters and offices.
The system was put into practice on an experimental basis in 1992. Despite 10 years of effort, the army is still unable to bring the system in line with its original goals.
One of the main factors causing the standstill of the system is the army's failure to recruit enough personnel for all the NCO ranks it needs service-wide.
The army has a long-term problem with the recruitment of career NCOs. This is due to the fact that young people would rather be officers than NCOs, army officials said.
Another unfavorable factor is that although the NCOs are scheduled to become the backbone of the army, they are still treated as inferiors without having their ranks raised on par with the officers, officials said.
Under such conditions, the NCO's strengthening project has yet to be formally taken from the army's work schedule.
An army general, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the project is not dead yet and that the army hopes to continue with it.
"Although we can not get enough young people to join the military as career NCOs, we have found a lot from the conscripts," the general said.
"We have recruited over 1,000 conscript-turned NCOs this year. These NCOs are highly educated. They all have master's degrees. They volunteer to serve as NCOs during their 22-month service," he said.
Despite the development, the general said that an over-reliance on conscripts as the main source for NCOs is not a desirable solution to the problems with the NCO system's strengthening project.
"We need more professional NCOs. Without sufficient professional NCOs, the NCO system's strengthening project is doomed to failure," he said.
RSS