Include women in the NS experience

SINGAPORE — To boost community support for National Service (NS), Singapore should allow women to take up National Service stints, said students at a focus group discussion organised by the Committee to Strengthen National Service (CSNS).
The session, held at Victoria Junior College yesterday, saw about half of the 72 students present raise their hands in the affirmative when asked if women should serve NS.

Serving NS, even for only a few months, will have positive effects on the community’s perception of conscription, they said.
“Among guys, NS is like a rite of passage ... something which gives us a national identity,” said student Isaac Chia, 18.
Girls, he felt, should also be given the chance to share in the experience.
Extending NS to girls would also remove the social stigma that they are physically inferior to men and unsuited for “unfeminine” NS roles, he added.
Students also called for NS outreach to be more “personal”.
“(NS outreach) should be more from the NSmen themselves,” said Gracia Lam, 18. She also cited the movie Ah Boys to Men, which she said gave families “a common topic to talk about at the dining table”.
The session yesterday was the first to be held with pre-enlistees.
Previous sessions were held with full-time NSmen and older members of the public.
CSNS steering committee member Suresh Divyanathan, who hosted the session, said the aim was to understand the attitudes of pre-enlistees towards NS, and engage their female peers on the importance of NS.
Compared to NSmen, who are concerned with existing problems and solutions, Mr Suresh find pre-enlistees more “aspirational”, brimming with ideas of what NS should be.
“They look at a lot of things in a very positive way,” he said.
On the suggestions made by the students for women to serve NS on a voluntary basis, Mr Suresh said the focus group discussions so far have yielded much support for the idea.
“For CSNS, it is great opportunity to relook into the volunteer scheme,” he added.
VJC student Esther Tay, 16, said she would consider serving NS for a few months but felt that making it compulsory would be “too harsh” and “sudden” for women.
“I still want the freedom of choice,” she added.