Defence minister Khaled Nordin said the module will be 80% military training and 20% nationalistic education.

“It is not true to say the programme is an effort to influence (trainees). Neither does it have any political elements,” Bernama reported him as saying here.

Khaled said the national service programme had many Bumiputera participants in the past as they make up the majority of the population. He said “certain criteria” would be set for the intake of future participants.

“It is impossible to accommodate all because the available places are limited,” he said.

Making a return after having been put on hold for more than five years, the programme will be carried out at territorial army regiment camps and police training centres across the country.

Former defence minister Mohamad Hasan had told the Dewan Rakyat last November that it was not possible to revive the programme this year as the 2024 budget had not provided an allocation for it.