The firearms training introduced in the National Service (NS) Programme, raising alarm in certain quarters, was dismissed as 'no big deal' by Deputy Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak today.

According to him, even secondary school students, who are cadets in voluntary reserve corps, are exposed to such training.

"I don't know why people are making such a bid deal out of this," he told a press conference in Kuala Lumpur.

Najib, who is also defence minister, said parents of the participating youths had given their consent.

"The parents must give their consent. If they don't, their kids would not be involved," he added

The much-criticised NS programme was launched officially in 2004 and recruits 85,000 youths aged 17 each year. They are divided into three batches and undergo a three-month training stint

However, it came under more fire last week when it was revealed that weapons training had been 'quietly' introduced at six of the country's 76 camps.

According to DAP parliamentarian Fong Po Kuan, who is a member of the parliamentary select committee on unity and national service, none of the committee members were aware of this.

She also said the government had always stressed that national service was not a military training programme.

Pilot project

Meanwhile, Najib said the introduction of firearms training was a 'pilot programme' and would be expanded to other camps if there are positive results.

"We'll see whether this form of training is beneficial or not. I stress that this is a pilot project," he said

Defending the training, he said the handling of firearms would be useful as it would contribute to discipline and simulate 'real' circumstances.

While the appropriate precautions are taken to ensure the safety of trainees, he said "it takes a high degree of discipline when you're handling firearms."

"It also creates a high degree of realism in the things that we do," he added.

One-day training

Last week, Bernama reported that the selected trainees will learn to handle the M16 rifle only for one day

"Each camp would be broken into groups of about 100 trainees each and they will spend about half a day learning the theoretical aspects of handling the weapon," said NS Training Department Director-General Kamaruddin Mohamed Baria.

"When they are ready, we will take them to a nearby army-based shooting range and train them to shoot - but only under the strict supervision of an army officer - and the session will take the other half of the day," he was quoted as saying by Bernama .

He also added that a trained army officer was assigned to each trainee in the present trial run, and that this would also be the case should weapons training be included in the NS training module.