Opinions: Compulsory year for young people: An unnecessary community service

One year of mandatory service for everyone sounds almost idyllic. If all Norwegian young people spend a year of their lives in the service of society, it can give a sense of community. Young people can experience a greater meaning. Someone who has fallen outside can find a way into working life. They can gain valuable experience by getting to know people from a completely different background.

A community service where those who are not in the military serve their duty in a nursery school or in a nursing home, something good is guaranteed to come out of it. Something good comes out of most things.

But a compulsory year, which Minister of Knowledge Kari Nessa Nordtun (Ap) and several county teams in the Labor Party now want, must be something more than just nice to have. The threshold must be higher.

If the state is to impose work they do not choose on their own, in a place they do not necessarily want to be, the arguments must be more than good.

Society’s needs be critical. The motive behind the compulsion must be clear. And we must know that a compulsory year actually solves the need.

At the moment, the debate about a compulsory year is a hodgepodge of naive intentions and unclear needs.

Health Minister Ingvild Kjerkol (Ap) is also eager for young people to be able to work in the health system during their compulsory year. There, the lack of people is undeniably a problem.

But as Mette Nord in the Trade Union quite rightly points out in Klassekampen, thousands of young people with no skills are hardly the right solution to that problem. For many, a compulsory year will mean postponing their education, for example in nursing.

It requires large-scale training and organization to get thousands of young people into the healthcare system. You may not need a three-month health recruit school, but competent management is indispensable.

In any case, if you have a certain respect for the young people and the quality of the work they will perform. In the Armed Forces, they need around one commander for every eight soldiers in the initial service.

An alternative use of resources could be to support more people to take vocational certificates. More accurate, far less invasive.

One of the most frequently used arguments for a compulsory year is externality. But most young people are not outsiders after all. Helping a fairly small minority into working life by requiring community service from everyone is difficult to defend.

The rationale for general conscription in Norway is that the responsibility for the defense of the country must rest on everyone. That principle stands, even if very few have to exercise the duty. That everyone has a duty to stand up for the country in crisis or war is something different from forcing young people to remedy the welfare state’s problems.

There is also the essential difference between conscription and the idea of ​​a civilian duty year: The initial service trains young people to solve tasks in an extraordinary situation.

Yes, they are also necessary in the day-to-day defense of the country, but the competence they are left with is crucial for preparedness.

The number who are called up for initial service is not controlled by the young people’s need for meaning and community. It is the needs of the Armed Forces (and varying political priorities) that govern.

With an increasingly dangerous neighbor to the east, the assessment of how many must serve conscription is also different. A few more soldiers are needed in the coming years.

But out of respect for how invasive conscription actually is, no more than society needs can be called up. It is a positive development that not everyone has to serve it anymore.

That said, something has been lost in that so few now receive thorough training in emergency preparedness. Knowledge weathers when fewer than one in five actually gain experience from the Armed Forces.

In an increasingly troubled world, it is a vulnerability. But it must be solved in other ways than a massive enrollment in a vague and expensive community service.

During the pandemic, the then Minister of Health Bent Høie (H) was praised for his speech to the youth. “Next summer doesn’t exist when you’re young,” he said, highlighting the value of young people’s time. That perspective has clearly been long forgotten.