The National Service Training Programme, or Program Latihan Khidmat Negara (PLKN), known locally as the Khidmat Negara ("National Service") was Malaysia's national service program under the Barisan Nasional (BN) government. The programme was handled by the National Service Training Department, or Jabatan Latihan Khidmat Negara (JLKN) under the Minister of Defence (MINDEF). The conscripts are 18-year-old youths that are selectively drafted. The three-month program, which started in December 2003, began as way to encourage friendship between youths of certain ages from different races and ethnic groups and address concerns that the country's multi-ethnic and multi-cultural groups who were seen of "becoming increasingly isolated from one another". The program was halted for one year in 2015 due to the federal government's efforts to cut spending. The program was reintroduced as PLKN 2.0 in 2016, with participation to be made fully optional by 2019. On 13 August 2018, Youth and Sports Minister Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman of the new federal government under Pakatan Harapan (PH) announced that the PLKN and National Civics Bureau (BTN) programmes were abolished, as they were being used for racial indoctrination. History The national service program, first proposed in late 2002, came to committee the following year, and was finally implemented in 2004. Initial proposals envisaged drafting all youths of a certain age, but later lack of resources led to restricting the numbers of the intake. The program, planned around a two-year program, was later reduced to a year, then to six months, and then to three months. Conscription has long been a sensitive political issue in Malaysia because of the ethnic divisions of the country. Proponents of National Service promoted bonding the youth of Malaysia together and creating a Malaysian nation, as the problem of racial polarisation was found to pervade educational institutions in Malaysia. Selection of conscripts In late December 2003, the names of 85,000 conscripts for the first National Service program was made public. The government announced that these youths were randomly selected out of the roughly 450,000 youths born in 1986, through a computerised process. Conscripts are 18 years of age and picked from a national database that includes all citizens registered with a Malaysian ID card, whether born locally or overseas. Conscripts were informed of their participation in the program by mail at the address listed on their identification card. They are also able to check their status on the program's website,