The National Service Training Council needs to sharply focus its approach to the Malaysian National Service (NS) programme by systematically planning and implementing programmes as well as setting forth a thorough management cycle.

This is not taking potshots but arguably the council is currently not adequately managing the NS. In barely three months, one reads about many telling incidents.

These include unpaid trainers allowances, haphazard trainers selection, recurrences of incidents involving fighting, lack of water, inadequacy of camp facilities, moral nightmares including sexual molestation and ultimately two fatalities. Time graph these events and the recurrences are in high frequency. Alarming indeed.

Existing NS operations lack in management quality control systems and have no formal health, safety, environmental and quality (HSE & Q) standards. Thus aspects of the programme such as training and instructions manuals do not have quality management reviews and endorsements.

The NS council has no technical specifications for the construction of even the more critical (dangerous) training structures. Instead it relies on plan drawings in its so-called general specifications. High ropes elements and assault courses are constructed based on plan drawings.

Tents structures, emplacements and procurements are also based on plan drawings, resulting in certain camps having tents that are too low and too hot for afternoon rest. Some tents are camped within a few feet from the toilets. Things like this take place in the absence of valid detailed technical specifications.

In NS' character building and community service modules, time utilisation is loose. One sees awfully huge amounts of idle time for the NS students. Instructors come in at 9am and go back by 4pm. Scheduled buses arrive hours later. Training aids are not available etc.

In general, the NS council has adopted a management system that requires a huge amount of initiative from the instructors. Given the limited scope of training instructions provided, initiatives in these cases mean instructors would be have the free will to do what they think correct or appropriate.

This holds to ransom the future of Malaysia. We are leaving the nation's future to the initiatives of these instructors. One may well ask who these instructors are and what are the credentials that they have to responsibly decide the initiatives (in the absence of training manuals/instructions)?

To set a true course for the NS, the council needs to adopt total transparency. To do so, bring on board total honesty and implement the following considerations:

1) Ensure a structural model that is appropriately chosen to anchor the development of the NS programme.

2) Have technical specifications for all aspects of the programme. Facilities must meet all technical specifications. Have them in place before allowing any of the programmes elements to be carried out in situ. It is incongruous to accept technically lacking facilities on the pretext of upgrading them later.

3) Have a HSE & Q policy and programme in place. And have formal operating procedures for all aspects of physical training

4) Take on board an industrial psychologist when developing selection criterion for trainers.

5) Ensure that pre-acceptance inspection of facilities is carried out based on technical specifications and that non-compliance is rectified before such facilities are accepted for training purposes. Follow-up technical inspections should be carried out periodically by independent groups.

6) Develop Emergency Response Plans that would provide guidance for such cases as floods, fire, riot, outbreaks, militant actions etc.

Ultimately, the NS council has the responsibility to identify the weak links in its programme. These weak links must never hold to ransom the future of Malaysia. One weak link here is the bus drivers who may be illegal refugees.

One final item for the NS council: table the lessons learnt based on your achievements in these three pilot intakes of NS trainees. A copy should be made available to the public, NGOs and parliament. Taxpayers have contributed RM500 million for the NS programme and this tabling of lessons learnt is the least they can do.