{UAH} S.6 Leavers to start National Service-2yrs military training?

The NRM government is embarking or reorganizing their S6 Leavers' training starting this year citing how some countries have similar programs, good idea if it really bears fruits of unity and development. Among the countries cited are Israel, Eritrea and  China. On close examination of the the countries, I find Eritrea wanting. Can someone here detail to us how far developed and united Eritrea is so that we can emulate its practices, or is there something I man missing here? Many Eritreans are fleeing their country citing dictatorship, unemployment, compulsory national services without salaries, and forced pay to government by its nationals in diaspora without which relatives at home are held hostage. However, there are other countries that have developed and their citizens are proud of their countries without necessarily forcing their citizens to undergo compulsory military service: Canada, USA, UK, Australia etc. Why is it that we think military training will be better for us, why not democratic governance?

It would be advisable for the committee tasked to work on this proposal to visit Eritrea to get hands-on experience before endorsing a similar thing in Uganda. Eritrea is a good choice because of similarity with Uganda unlike Israel and China. While Israel and China may have made progress economically and in some other areas, their human rights record is not good. I don't think that is what we want to copy in Uganda. In my opinion, military training alone without addressing the social determinants of health cannot transform a country. There are more needed than patriotism and there is no guarantee that military training fosters patriotism, otherwise we would not have policemen engaging in corruption or beating journalists since they underwent military training.

We should expand our areas of focus to find out why we may not be patriotic. One such focus should be the provision of social services, good governance, affordable education and health for all and a careful study be done over a period of time to determine whether the provision of those services fails to make our citizens patriotic.

 The government of Uganda says, "  Countries like Israel, Eritrea and China have compulsory national service programs for their young people before joining universities, while Norway makes it mandatory for any male above 18 to undergo military training."

Peter Simon