Stop PLKN and absorb it into school, govt told

Harakahdaily

Oct 14: The government has been urged to scrap the National Service Training Programme (PLKN) and channel the programme's funds to schools instead. At the 2012 budget debate in parliament yesterday, Pokok Sena member of parliament Mahfuz Omar said the PKLN had failed to generate any positive results but only burnt a hole in the national treasury.Mahfuz suggested that the government scrap the programme and instead focus on improving the education institution, adding that subjects taught in PLKN could also be taught at schools. “The allocation of RM5 billion for PLKN should be absorbed to schools or to build more technical schools, and blend the syllabus at PLKN into the school. This way, savings can be made,” he said. The PAS vice president stressed that the huge allocation did not justify PLKN’s existence, saying that more benefit could be reaped by investing the funds to the schooling sector. “If the three-month programme can successfully improve the character of the teenagers, it should have been absorbed as part of school syllabus early on, instead of going through PLKN with such high allocation, which should have brought more benefits to other sectors besides improving the quality of education,” he added.