Rethinking National Service

Education minister Sanet Steenkamp is right to assure the public that there is a need to consult over the possibility of introducing compulsory national service programmes for young Namibians.

“There is a growing conversation around the possibility of compulsory national service, particularly for young people leaving school,” she told a National Youth Service (NYS) event this week.

Globally, mandatory national service involves a legal requirement by a government for citizens, most often young adults, to spend a set period serving in the military or doing public civilian work.

The debate around some type of national service is not new.

It has been a recurring issue and was one of former president Sam Nujoma’s pet policies, to the extent that he transferred the NYS to his office.

Nujoma was adamant that the NYS would be “transformed into an effective agency to assist various agencies in dealing with national emergencies, such as floods, fires and drought relief”.

The NYS was subsequently moved back to the youth ministry but debate over the youth’s role continues to this day.

As the country grapples with youth unemployment, leaders now appear to be weighing whether to legally require young Namibians to serve their society instead of relying on the current voluntary system.

However, it is crucial that Namibia avoid anything that carries even a whiff of militarisation.

Such a programme could also risk impinging on people’s civil liberties and free will.

The ideal would be for the government to offer young Namibians a path to contribute to society through meaningful training and jobs.

Two years ago, then United Kingdom prime minister Rishi Sunak pledged to introduce mandatory national service that would require every 18-year-old to spend a year in the military or volunteer one weekend a month in “civil resilience”.

It was not the same as conscription, which legally obliges people to join the military for a period.

It promised to give young adults the option to choose between enrolling in a year-long military training programme or carrying out civil or community service one weekend every month over the same period.

If implemented effectively, that is likely a better basis for any national youth service than a militarised system.

The goal would be to create citizens who have the freedom to be productive in shaping Namibia’s economy and society.

The government and civil society should use ongoing reforms to help shape a modern national youth service that will prioritise areas like artificial intelligence which is undeniably changing life as we know it.

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