"Seorang remaja dari Kangar, Perlis yang gagal melaporkan diri menyertai PLKN tahun lalu menjadi tertuduh pertama di negara ini dihadapkan ke mahkamah atas kesalahan itu Ini merupakan kes pertama membabitkan 4,269 peserta PLKN yang gagal melaporkan diri siri pertama latihan itu tahun lalu, yang dihadapkan ke mahkamah" reads an Utusan Malaysia report on the Malaysian national service.

I cannot understand why the youngster from Perlis need to be brought to court for refusing to participate in the national service. This is wrong especially when the youngster is picked at random to begin with. It means that not only was he chosen by chance, but he was brought to court as an example to others that it is a government's prerogative to force the youth to be indoctrinated in some army camp.

Why choose to display our poor understanding of the concept of education as such? Why chose the youngster from Perlis as a national scapegoat? Is it because he hails from the remote state, whose inhabitants are soft-spoken, laid-back and simple.

As one who has been for decades involved in the business of respecting, nurturing, and expanding the mind of Malaysians and Americans, this image of the creation of Spartans chills and troubles me. In my capacity as an educator 'in the classroom and outside of the classroom across the lifespan' as the slogan for Teachers College, Columbia University , New York, puts it, I am concerned with the way we force-feed what we want our children to learn.

Our youth should not be subjected to a national service type of regiment but to a programme of creativity and problem-solving based on the latest principles of humanistic teaching and learning.

There should be no 'one-size-fits-all' formula, such as the Malaysian national service formula, for the development of the mind of the youth.

As many educationalists are aware, the MRSM system is modeled amongst others, after the renowned Bronx School for the Gifted in Science in the city of New York; a school that produced Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners.