The government announced late last year that for draftees born after 1994, the period of compulsory military service would be extended from four months to one year. To reduce the disruption the extended military service period could have on draftees’ subsequent career development or graduate school education, the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of Education worked together to come up with a “3+1” plan, which allows undergraduate students to complete their college studies within three years, and then spend the fourth year fulfilling their military service obligations.
The public’s general reception of this plan has been quite negative. Some people worried that this might further deteriorate the educational quality of Taiwan’s universities; others raised the concern that because male and female students take different amounts of time to finish their college education, it is a form of gender-based discrimination; still others pointed out that such a plan does not make a dent in the problem of disruption caused by the obligation to perform military service.
Actually, there is a very simple and proven solution to minimizing the disruption that military service imposes on draftees’ post-college pursuit of employment or education opportunities: Draftees could complete their military service right after high school, but before going to college. This arrangement would obviously free the draftees from any encumbrance of military service after college graduation, and would have several subtle advantages, which are discussed below.
Among all the countries that currently implement a national conscription system, Israel is arguably the most successful, effective and best-performing in the world. The three concrete and specific indicators of its success are: (1) conscripts are genuinely able to shoulder the burden of defending the country; (2) conscripts could effectively use the training and experience received during their service to boost their future academic study and career development; (3) the generally fair and universal compulsory military service system facilitates the amalgamation of different social classes and fosters the collective spirit of national unity.
Besides the fact that men and women serve, the most distinct feature of Israel’s conscription system is that conscripts are required to serve right after high school graduation, but before going to university or entering the workforce. This is why the main worry of Israeli high school graduates is how to contend for a spot in the most desirable military unit (e.g. the Israeli Air Force or Unit 8200, to name two), so as to acquire useful skills and abilities that could prove valuable to post-service education or employment.
USEFUL SKILLS
The abilities to be acquired during military service refer not only to the technical skills and knowledge associated with special job functions, but also improvements to an individual that would help them become a more effective member of modern society, such as a healthy physique, strong willpower to overcome difficulties, strict discipline to follow the logic of teamwork, being able to get along with people from different social walks, effective leadership, sound judgement and decisionmaking capability in uncertain times, and so on.
Generally speaking, college students who embark on university education after completing military service are psychologically more mature, more fluent in social interactions, have a clearer picture of the heart’s desires and lifetime goals, and gain a deeper understanding of how society at large works. Therefore, such students are more likely to cherish and take better advantage of the pedagogical resources and opportunities afforded by college education, more inclined to proactively associate the theoretical knowledge acquired in classrooms with the skillset requirements of real-world jobs and positions, and more capable of weathering setbacks and defeats and fighting spiritedly out of adversity into eventual victory. This description not only applies to Israeli college students, but is equally applicable to a minority of Taiwanese students who choose to serve in the military before attending college.
LOST MONTHS
In the past 10 years, Taiwan’s university admission process gradually evolved from one that is based on some examination scores to one that relies on the full application package of each applicant. Consequently, Taiwan’s high-school students actually only study rigorously for two to two-and-a-half years, because, for many students with better qualifications, once they submit their university admission applications and get a positive response from the college of their choice, few are willing to complete the remainder of the high-school curriculum with the same level of intensity and thus efficacy as in the first two years of high-school study.
As a result, many Taiwanese high-school students effectively waste the seven months between receiving the university admission notice (about mid-February) and actually enrolling in the university (about mid-September). Suppose instead they could start their one-year military service immediately after receiving the university admission notice. They could utilize this otherwise idle seven months to fulfill their conscription obligations.
SUPPORTING MEASURES
However, the arrangement proposed above requires two complementary supporting measures: First, universities need to schedule courses so that the fall and spring semesters serve as the very first semester for some entering students. Second, the government should incorporate the courses in the second semester of the 12th grade into the military service’s knowledge training program, so that conscripts who are determined to faithfully complete their high-school studies have a chance to do so.
Because girls in Taiwan are not obliged to perform military service, it would seem the above proposal might delay boys’ college education progress by one year compared with that of girls of the same biological age. However, such a delay could actually be a blessing in disguise, because many past educational psychology studies have conclusively demonstrated that, in terms of mental capacity development, boys generally lag behind adolescent girls by at least a year.
Therefore, encouraging boys to serve for one year before entering college would provide male college students with a more level playing field to compete with female college students of the same mental age.
Chiueh Tzi-cker is a joint appointment professor in the Institute of Information Security at National Tsing Hua University.
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