> After graduating, every citizen is required to do active service in the military.
Nitpick: Men only. It's a common lament here that the men start higher education/work a couple of years later than their women counterparts, hence "losing out".
I wish the Israelis or Swiss could come in to fix the Singaporean national service system. It is ineffective and inefficient -- the NS system produces a subpar military (the full timers are quite good though), and it provides very limited benefits to the individual.
A shorter period of training, a competitive bidding process to get into elite units like Israel's 8200, and a longer term commitment with the same people for the rest of your life, would be vastly better (and probably something the US should consider).
As it is, NS is basically wasted time for most people . Ambulance and SOF seem like the only decent options. The discrimination against the Malay origin singaporeans also seems wrong.
Getting the Israelis visibly and heavily involved in the Singaporean military is just asking for trouble in the region, given the nature of the country's neighbours.
Another issue I have heard about is the difference in local and expat salary (only hearsay, I don't have any data). Add that on top of mandatory military service for men and it could leave someone pretty unsatisfied.
I was addressing the comment that men complain it makes them start their work later in life because of a military service. I was saying that (some) women go through the same by having children.
The only "equalizing" compulsory conscription provides is when it puts men of diverse backgrounds into a tight-knit environment where they have to live, work and play together for the majority of the week. You don't get that outside of the military, or at least not in the same scale.
The pregnancy vs conscription issue really isn't debatable.
no law compels a woman to have a baby, or take 2yrs' leave to look after it. maybe the husband shares part of the duty. maybe its the husband that looks after the baby. but conscription compels singaporean men to provide labor at well below market rates, in this case for 2yrs, plus ongoing resrervist cycles for the next decade or so. its like. by law singaporean women have 24hrs a day, men have 22. or something like that.
Nitpick: Men only. It's a common lament here that the men start higher education/work a couple of years later than their women counterparts, hence "losing out".