Minister said it was to instill leadership skills and patriotism. This time though not a huge amount of students will attend, perhaps several thousand a year. Key is cutting costs and getting help from our army to hold courses.

By the way I got my answer: PLKN was suspended in 2015 as it was costly to run back then. A revised National Service “2.0” was reintroduced a year later, but after the change in govt in 2018, it was abolished later that year.