KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 9 — The National Service Training Programme (PLKN) 3.0 will be conducted in three phases, Defence Minister Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan said today.

He said this was a decision made by a special committee formed to reevaluate how to improve the national service programme after the government gave a "green light” for its continuation in 2021.

"That committee has decided that it will not utilise the old template whereby in the PLKN 1.0 — while it trained about 900,000 students in 16 months — they used up a lot of funds, close to RM8 billion.

"The committee also found that the PLKN 1.0 was treated more like a summer camp whereby it was not able to achieve the supposed outcome expected of the youths who went through the training programme,” he added.

Mohamad said for the first phase of the programme, youths will be identified when they are in Form Three and Form Four and training will be adapted into their syllabus, unlike in the past when participants were taken directly after their Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM).

"Then in phase two, the programme will be based on military training and the committee has made suggestions that the training will be conducted at the military camps and Askar Wataniah training centres nationwide.

"There are 13 of these training centres and the Pulapol (Malaysian Police Training Centre) on Jalan Padang Tembak is able to accommodate over 4,000 trainees and through this, we will be able to save on government expenditure and at the same time able to have a conducive training environment.

"For 45 days, the trainees will go through a module based on military training (90 per cent) while another part of the training (10 per cent) will be based on the spirit of citizenship training,” Mohamad added.

In phase three, he said the youths will be accepted by the agencies including the fire department, civil defence, police force or military force, and will be eligible for a permanent position.

"Those who want a permanent position will have to go through the normal recruitment process but it will be a smoother process since they already have the basic training during the PLKN 3.0 training programme.

"And if they are accepted into local or private institutions they will be considered to join as next-generation recruits (rekrut pelapis) at the respective institutions which have uniform bodies,” he said.

With this new module PLKN, Mohamad said the government can cut down its expenditure.