Paul Sagar in The Guardian:
How about national service – but instead of entering the military, recruits are pledged to the NHS? Eye-catching, but ultimately not right, at least not in that form. Forcing young people to do work they’d prefer not to, when there isn’t even an enemy at the gates, will only lead to bad results. Indeed, the army has already learned this: compulsory recruits in the postwar period were typically unmotivated and incompetent; a drag rather than a boost to the military’s performance.
But that’s a crude precedent. We can take more relevant inspiration from elsewhere. For example, young men in Austria who do not wish to serve in the military can instead opt for health or social care work; many end up driving ambulances. The trade-off is that they do nine months instead of six. In Norway, conscientious objectors were, until 2012, able to perform “civilian national service”, working in community settings such as primary schools or nursing homes, and accruing points towards university entry for doing so. Thinking along similar lines, how about this? The government offers recent school leavers a deal: 50% off their total university fees if they first spend a year volunteering in social care. (You could even up the ante: 100% off if they commit to two years; full back pay with a bonus if they stay in the profession.)
More here.
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