[Closed] Some form of National Service

It would be outsourced to Serco, be shit and just create resentment

I think there might be a place for it.

Last summer a few of our lad's peers were desperately scrabbling to onto NCS to apparently help with college/uni applications. A few of them had never done anything similar (DofE, Scouts, whatever) and parents seemed genuinely surprised how much the kids got out of it and how it changed and matured them.

That's only a couple of weeks. Maybe a year might knock the shine off it. But it would open up some people's eyes to the sections of society that they don't usually see, those parts that need help and support, maybe personal opportunities that their background and upbringing might not have shown them.

But I fear A-A may have spotted the flaw in the plan 😄

It would be outsourced to Serco, be shit and just create resentment

Concise and accurate.

Germany's National Service/Conscription, until it ended a few years back, had the option of public service instead of serving in the military.
In my opinion if you have nothing else better to do then some form of public service could be an option after school. The issue is it has to be worthwhile and not hinder an otherwise offered career choice, I do not think the military is the answer though. The British military is a professional one and doesn't require people who don't want to do it or be there.

I don't think you could force people to do anything, in this country. Each country has a different relationship with their government and ours is not that good.

I fully support the idea of government funded 'gap years' or 'years out' for everyone though. That'd be awesome.

I quite like the idea of say £50 a week on top of dole for doing "public service"

If you get a gun like you do in Switzerland it could be popular...

What A_A said.

I can see it being of benefit to some but..........

Military service has the advantage of instilling discipline etc. It usually gets talked about more as a finishing school for authoritarianism.

Anything else? Not sure what your average undergrad is going to get out of picking fruit, mending roads, or working in a care home. it just sounds like a policy idea designed to appeal to Daily Mail readers who consider anyone under 30 a bit uppity and in need of cutting back on their insurrection and avocado on toast.

As long as we start with retired folk and work backwards.

It would potentially be harmful to the prospects of or of little benefit to those people pursuing careers or education. Worse it would remove jobs, and from what you described from those who are currently low paid, and potentially drive more people on to benefits. You'd add a load of cost onto the benefits bill from the people on it too. Army don't really want a whole load of uninterested recruits and you have to massively expand the DIO estate at the point they are trying to rationalise.

It would kill off all the elderly as the fapped themselves to an early heart attack over how the youngsters need it.

It'd serve little to no purpose and is borne from the view that it is those ****less youngsters that cause the problems and the elderly who had NAT service do no wrong.

I have done National Service of the military kind. Despite some good memories, it's a no from me. And this is why:

It usually gets talked about more as a finishing school for authoritarianism.

An expensive indoctrination machine.

Military service has the advantage of instilling discipline etc. It usually gets talked about more as a finishing school for authoritarianism.

If this was the intention it doesn’t always work. My father did his national service in the REME and was sent to the Korean War, where he spent almost all of his time in the Army after basic training. He absolutely hated it, and it still rankles with him that due to a problem with the ship bringing him home that he did an extra 10 weeks. It left him with a deep mistrust of ‘authority’ and a particular dislike of the regular armed forces (who treated National Servicemen with contempt, at least in his unit) which to a certain extent rubbed off on me.

Army don’t really want a whole load of uninterested recruits

This was the main reason that NS stopped in the UK in the 50’s IIRC

I can’t see how a load of people who have not done any national service can go and tell younger generations they should do it.

Why not make people do it the year before they retire instead?

A concept normally promoted by individuals that have no statistical chance of being consripted.

Chains gangs now thats an idea? How about for every day spent picking litter you get an hour off your sentence? Again a concept promoted by an individual who has little chance of ending up in prison.... although i am ugly enough not to attract "attention"

It’s always proposed by those who are too old to do it.
My dad used to say “they should bring back national service” it ended in 1960 and he just missed it.

Would any of you willingly give a year of your precious time to the state?
I’m all for volunteering and doing things that benefit others but that’s taking the piss.

Instead of young people you have to do a year immediately prior to getting your state pension. See how popular the idea is then.

I knew someone who was in the Israeli Defence Force, and one of his jobs was supervising conscripts. They hated it. They made sure he hated it. Eventually he quit.

I feel like everyone talking about this on here is too old to participate, so **** off

Like a bunch of fat white guys in suits telling women they can't have an abortion. Unless it's theirs.

The biggest issue would be having enough for people to actually do, if it ends up like being a track and trace worker and watching Netflix all day it's useless. My dad got a lot of it, volunteered for what was a hardship posting right on the East German border listening in to Eastern Bloc comms. They were busy and actually doing something the whole time. That was 1958 and he can still remember his morse code. It was partly that that made him change from being an electrician to joining the fire brigade when he came out and he had a good career from then. I know others who hated every moment, they simple weren't kept busy and when they were it was doing pointless stuff.

National Health Service wouldn't be a bad idea.

I struggle to think of a single, tangible benefit to it.
Unless it starts at retirement age, then it’d be worth it for the Daily Mail comments alone.

Former soldier here, worked on a training depot at the end of my service. All I can say is no thanks. Waste of everyone’s time. The National Service soldiers would have to train and work away from the enlisted soldiers. They would only get naff duties. Be a bit of mare to manage to be honest. The money involved in training soldiers is fairly expensive. A regiment wouldn’t want to waste vital resources on training people who will leave after a year.
I can also see similar problems with other public service. People already have those jobs, who will pay for additional labour? Would need a load of regulating to ensure companies are not abusing the conscripted help.
A 17 year old infantry soldier does approx 60 weeks of training. Army college for 49 weeks and an additional 10 weeks Infantry training. Older than 17 and a half and it’s 28 weeks training. NS soldiers would have to do different training, so they’re never going to fit in. The training a soldier does is specifically set to build fitness and stamina over the course. I just don’t see the benefit to the army in having some badly trained kids with guns (they’re already called the RAF Regt...;)

(they’re already called the RAF Regt…;)

Knob.;)

This was the main reason that NS stopped in the UK in the 50’s IIRC

I thought it came about as it was decided that no person born after the start of the war would undergo national service.

I believe John Peel was born on the last possible day?

I can't see many of the Boris and Moggs of this land doing it. A note from Nanny would see them right.

. I just don’t see the benefit to the army in having some badly trained kids with guns (they’re already called the RAF Regt…;)

An old friend had been a photographer in the RAF which meant also being part of the guard force for the airfield he was based at. He rather laughed at the idea of him fighting off Spetsnaz Commandos parachuting in with a tripod.

Instead of doing national service why not just have more companies doing apprenticeship? I did mine around 15 years back and loved it, I got an education, a wage but more importantly a career. Much better than being forced to do a job that you have no interest in to begin with.

As a current member of the Armed Forces, Woodster has it about right. A new joiner only really becomes useful after 1-2 years training, depending on specialisation, so a huge number of people in it for a year would simply be a babysitting exercise to the benefit of neither party. In fact, the drain on regular manpower to achieve this would most likely bring all forces to a standstill.
I think the idea that a volunteer is worth ten pressed people holds true for military or civilian arenas (although the RAF Regt would probably appreciate some extra window lickers).

This feels like it would be last straw in the long line of events since the last recession of the wealthy middle aged and the elderly taking a dump on the futures of the youth of today

National Health Service wouldn’t be a bad idea.

I’d rather we had staff who want to do the job rather then felt it was the only option.

I'm opposed to compulsory slavery with the option of death.

A lad at work is having to piss about trying to get exemption otherwise he has to go back to his country to do his nat service. He's a highly skilled and valuable professional but he has to either get exemption, serve several years in the army or not be able to go home.

It's not like he's going to get anything out of it, he'd be bloody useless in the army but there you go. And with travel restrictions he might struggle to get his exemption.

National Health Service wouldn’t be a bad idea.

I’d rather we had staff who want to do the job rather then felt it was the only option.

No option - it's national service 🙂
Myriad roles available...

Instead of doing national service why not just have more companies doing apprenticeship? I did mine around 15 years back and loved it, I got an education, a wage but more importantly a career. Much better than being forced to do a job that you have no interest in to begin with.

This; much more use than going to Uni and coming out with a degree in media studies, or archaeology, (what’s the first thing you ask someone with an archaeology degree? Can I have fries with that?).
Not too far off the truth, it’s pretty much what a friend of mine did, there just aren’t any jobs in archaeology.

w00dster has it right. I worked with some of the last of the last mandatory military service in Europe - Italian Army. A few young lads working for me were essentially conscripts. They were only there because they couldn't get the exemptions the brighter or richer families could wangle.
They were only any use for low level jobs and nothing that is military in nature. The cost of building a training and support system around them was not worth the return. So, a massive waste of time, effort, resources and money for no real result.

Given the current economic crisis, a more modern version of the American New Deal from Depression era might be worth looking at.

Conveniently located large nations may get by with volunteers but small countries like mine which are located cozily next to friendly hungry bear have no option to mandatory service.

Keeping small professional military along with conscription service is neither cheap or fun for the conscripts but the alternatives are really not too tempting.

We had it here, ET. ET meant you worked for a week and got an Extra Tenner, surprisingly this was not a universally popular scheme.

Imagine you're the socially awkward guy at school who gets bullied occasionally, casually waiting for school to end so you can go and get a little flat and a job and never have to interact with humans again unless you wanted to. Then you finish college and have to live for a year in a dorm where other men are encouraged to be shouty and aggressive.

I think the biggest problem with compulsory National service in the UK would be that you'd be forcing national service on a generation who's parents, grandparents and great grandparents never had to go through the same thing before them.

It would almost certainly lead to resentment, a generation being press-ganged into roles they never wanted, putting any life plans they might have on hold. From their point of view simply to placate some sort of DM driven narrative about "kids these days" from an older generation that were never put through the same thing themselves...

So any UK national service would really have to be voluntary, and I think we have to consider what sort of service we want those volunteers to be put to, knowing our current government it could well be hijacked for commercial purposes.

Whatever roles are on offer they have to both benefit society and the individual undertaking it, I'd like to see some inducements like a completed year of national service entitling an individual to a significant reduction or waiving of tuition fees if they want to go to university or other funding for training...

Or we could just strengthen and invest in apprenticeships.

Or we could just strengthen and invest in apprenticeships.

I completely agree with this on one level, but I am thinking more about the virtues of service per se. I would also be concerned with the potential for flooding the market with too many trained (apprenticed) tradespeople. The way I was thinking about it was in a manner that didn't trespass on others' work.

So, when I posted the original question, I was thinking about things like coastal management (where participants spend some time cleaning up the coast (from plastics, for example) and maintaining it.

The same could be done with forests, roads, urban streets, etc.

Then, of course, there are the elderly and vulnerable. Offering reading to the blind, or guiding, or homecare to the physically disabled (where professionals are unable to do this due to overstretching), etc.

But I can completely see the various points being made above, regarding the potential for commercialisation, taking work from areas where people could otherwise be gainfully employed, etc...

Anyway, it looks like there would be too many complicated issues with the idea for it to fly. And God forbid I pander to the DM-reading population!

bone spurs would prevent the well off from participating

This; much more use than going to Uni and coming out with a degree in media studies, or archaeology, (what’s the first thing you ask someone with an archaeology degree? Can I have fries with that?).
Not too far off the truth, it’s pretty much what a friend of mine did, there just aren’t any jobs in archaeology.

Interesting, my wife's a commercial archaeologist with a degree, when she first left uni over half her course went straight into commercial companies, a fair few doing masters many onto teaching history.

And now in the middle of a pandemic her company and competitors are actually taking folks on. Crying out for staff.

Don’t come here with your promotion of education and the successes that can flow from it… all these ****less kids should do what we know is good for them, not spend a few years expanding their knowledge and aptitude in a field that interests them, with the hope of spending later years using some of what they gain in a commercial setting, or passing it on to another generation of learners.

It wouldn't work as mentioned. However I do I think see your thought process behind it.

You'd be better having social lessons in school so a syllabus that's based in society would be good such as serving meals litter picking etc.

I also think that more restorative punishment would be of benefit. So you get caught for vandalism you spend a minimum of 150hrs cleaning graffiti and litter picking.

I'm also of the opinion (I have loads btw) that more should be taught in school about nature and try and to get people to connect with it so they understand about the impact of litters wild fires ect.

I spent my teens in the ATC and I believe its partly responsible for my love of the outside.

This; much more use than going to Uni and coming out with a degree in media studies, or archaeology, (what’s the first thing you ask someone with an archaeology degree? Can I have fries with that?).
Not too far off the truth, it’s pretty much what a friend of mine did, there just aren’t any jobs in archaeology.

typical left brainer myopic view. i have a ‘useless media degree’ as do lots of my friends and acquaintances. we tend to make or create the stuff you fail to see, yet you plonk yourself down on the sofa and watch or listen to it every day, you pick it up and look/read at it, some of it you dismiss, some of it influences you more than you think.
whatever your livelihood/skills are that too will make use of people like me even if it’s just helping sell it or indirectly creating a market for it.
shame the ability to look at the bigger picture was lacking in whatever degree/apprenticeship you did.

Do kids still do work experience? I spent 2 weeks in solihull council and thought it was pretty good for me. And it taught me I never want to be a QS 😄

Where I grew up a lot of the teenagers ended up doing 'community service' but I think that might be a different thing to what the op was thinking. 😀

On the subject of work experience, it's quite tricky to arrange needing safeguarding measures etc. - we used to run at my last employer, one designated week a year for 16+. Hugely over-subscribed and quite an onerous task to manage. We also ran a 12 week summer internship programme for university students - we provided the funding for their wages etc but it was quite hard to get host managers to create a role profile / project against they could be assessed at the end.

Part of the problem is we have education system in this country is often quite detached from the world of work, particularly no decent career guidance and working to fill genuine skills needs. Consequently we have droves of people doing expensive degrees in subjects for which there is relatively little demand, even in subjects such as law.

I have that same discussion with my life. I say a modern apprenticeship where you split your time at college and work is the way to go (I'm a bit biased as that's what I did). That way what you learn at college can be tried out at work and vice versa. Plus you don't get a load of debt at the end.

My wife says that going to uni/art college was the right way to go as that's what she did but then she had parents who could contribute to her rent and bills so she didn't run up a huge debt.