The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) is to propose the establishment of a legislative panel to evaluate the effectiveness of the one-year extended military service once the new legislative session convenes on Thursday next week, TPP legislator-at-large-elect Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) said yesterday.
New conscripts began their compulsory service yesterday, making them the first batch to serve after the program was re-extended to one year.
Huang urged the government to ensure that young men’s lives and year of training are not wasted.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
The proposed panel under the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee would examine whether the Ministry of National Defense (MND) can provide valuable and solid military training in one year and ensure that the training is applicable when necessary, she wrote on Facebook.
The panel would be composed of members from different parties and would report directly to the committee, Huang added.
The content and quality of the one-year compulsory service should matter more than the duration, she said, adding that it should develop skills that are applicable during wartime, provide equipment training, and promote unit discipline and personal interactions between trainees and instructors.
The ministry is known to be “lax” in discipline, she said, urging it to step up management and oversight, endeavor to make people feel proud of serving in the military.
She cautioned that the “3+1” (three years of university coursework and one year of military service) policy option would only create more problems instead of helping to bridge the gap for students who are to serve in the military.
The Ministry of Education proposed the policy to balance education with compulsory military service, asking schools to relax regulations on maximum credits per semester and cross-university elective courses to allow students to finish their bachelor’s degrees and compulsory service in time.
Huang also urged the MND to mull plans on fully integrating military reservists in times of war to ensure the country’s combat preparedness.
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