IS THE RELA CADET CORPS NEEDED IN SCHOOL?

ARCHIVES 2010

By admin-s On Jan 17, 2010

What is the purpose of education? Basically, we send our children to school to learn the three R’s – reading, writing and arithmetic. Apart from that, we hope that the school will play its role as a socialization agent to fulfil its role in socialization, social control, economic training and other functions. Our Malaysian education system seems to have gone a tad off-course in its effort to introduce not one but TWO military-style training as part of co-curriculum activities for secondary schools.

By Masterwordsmith

The Star today featured an article by Wong Sai Wan on NS exemption for volunteer student corps members where Home Ministry secretary- general Datuk Seri Mahmood Adam announced in an interview yesterday that:

Students who join the Civil Defence or Rela cadet corps in school may find themselvesexempted from National Service under a Home Ministry proposal.

The ministry is seeking to recruit some 60,000 students for the two uniformed corps which offer military-style training as part of co-curriculum activities for secondary schools.

“The training provided by Rela and the Civil Defence is even tougher than National Service. These two corps are also uniformed groups. Read more AT THIS LINK

The program will entail:

* two years of training every weekend during school terms, which is even longer than the three months that National Service trainees go through

I do not understand the rationale of this program at all.

1. Why is there a necessity to have TWO uniformed groups that have the same objective?

2. Why is must student go through TWO YEARS of training to get military training to get exemption from National Service when not every student is called up for National Service?

3. If the Ministry intends to ensure fresh recruits for the adult units, this overlapping of activities and aims for both Civil Defence or Rela cadet corps means:

* wastage of resources as two sets of teachers would be training the students in the same type of activities
* wastage of resources as two sets of teachers would also have to be trained for activities that essentially have the same objectives
* money would be wasted on two types of uniforms whereas if there is only ONE type, there would be economies of scale if these are produced on a larger scale to cater to the bigger demand
* wastage of space in the school activities which could be used for other more worthwhile activities

4. Why does the government want to introduce MILITARY training at such a young age when they should actually be taught more important values and practical forms of behavior that will better equip them for the real world?

5. Doesn’t the adult unit of Rela Corps have their own training program that others can attend at their leisure?

I appreciate the fact that the two uniformed groups are aimed at handling natural and man-made disasters as the first responder under the country’s emergency plan for situations like floods and landslides. But the question is – is it worth the amount of time spent every weekend when the main objective as specified in the report is to help them have the POSSIBILITY of being exempted from NS?