Efforts by anxious youths to enquire if they have been selected for national service training were frustrated by technical difficulties in accessing the hotline, dedicated website and SMS service today.

Yesterday, the Defence Ministry conducted a random selection exercise by computer to identify the pioneer batch of 85,000 from out of 480,000 eligible candidates born in 1986.

They were told that they could find out their status from today by using hotline and SMS services, as well as checking the National Service website . ( See table )

This morning, as parents and teenagers began their search, many were thwarted on all three fronts.

One parent from Kota Baru said it has been difficult to access the website since early this morning.

An enraged parent from Taiping, who faced similar problems, felt that the website was defective and that this may have been a ploy by the government to get people to use the more expensive Short Message Service (SMS), at RM2 per text message.

"It's just stupid. They want to force us to pay RM2 (instead of using the Internet). Just imagine, 480,000 youths paying RM2 each, would mean that someone is collecting RM1 million," he said.

A student from Petaling Jaya complained that the hotline service was inadequate, as she had to repeatedly call the number before she got through to someone, who asked for her identity card number.

"I dialed the number more than 20 times before someone picked up the phone. I was not picked but I know at least eight girls from my school who have been chosen," she said.

Slow response

Malaysiakini

tested the web service from about 11.30am and found it loading slowly. We were only able to get access at noon, despite having broadband connection.

An identity card number of a potential trainee was typed in, but the 'submit' button had to be repeated hit to send the query. After 30 minutes, there was confirmation that the candidate had not been selected. It took 15 minutes with a second query.

We tested the SMS method at 11.36am, and had yet received a reply up to 7pm. However, acknowledgement of receipt was received at 12.11pm, about 34 minutes after the message was sent.

The reply read: Langganan keputusan undian bagi KP-(number) diterima . (Subscription to selection results for [IC number] has been received.)

Contacted for comment, National Service Training Department director-general Kamarulzaman Md Nor said: "We only have five lines we have about 20 people calling in at any one time and it takes one minute to respond to each of them. That is why the lines are jammed."

Asked about the SMS service and website operations, he said both services had been contracted out to private companies, and referred malaysiakini to Xybase MSC Sdn Bhd senior vice-president and chief executive Zainuddin Abdullah.

Zainuddin said his company was only in charge of the website, and that the SMS service was being operated by another company, Ethos, which could not be reached for comment.

He explained that the website had to be brought down around 10am today as there was need for immediate changes to the content.

Zainuddin further claimed the service disruptions were due to "hacking attempts" and attempts by his team to rectify the situation (by bringing the site down).

The national service training programme, mooted by former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad last October, aims to foster patriotism, unity among races, volunteerism, self-confidence and moral values.

Participants will undergo physical training, nation building, character building and community service.

The first batch will undergo training from Feb 16 to May 2, while the second and third batch will commence concurrently from March 22 to June 13. Each batch will consist of 28,350 trainees.

Those who do not want to rely on technology to find out if they have been selected can wait for notification by registered post, or look for their names in designated newspapers on Dec 20.