Obstacle put up by Mindef as a means to test if skills acquired in National Service is useful.
More NSmen are failing to clear standard obstacles in real life this year after changes to the IPPT came into effect in July 2014.
Every year, SAF and Mindef will set up obstacle courses in environments regular people will encounter everyday in Singapore. This is to test if skills acquired while undergoing National Service will finally come in handy in everyday life.
This year, a garden bush is built around a bus stop in Ulu Pandan, code named Gardens By The Bus Stop, to see if NSmen who had gone through NS will be able to negotiate the terrain safely to get on the bus.
However, the results have not been encouraging.
Supreme General of the Army, Jin Seow Onn, said at a press conference: “Almost 80 percent of Singaporean men failed to clear this hurdle, while another three died while doing so in the last two weeks.”
A similar obstacle built for a bus stop was put up two years ago to test the agility of NSmen to manoeuvre around it.
Located at Newton, this barricaded bus stop was supposed to test the low wall climbing skills of NSmen. Some 70 percent managed to clear it, while two men died trying in a period of two weeks.
Supreme General Jin said: “It is not surprising that we are performing worse today compared to a few years ago.”
“The new three-station IPPT is making NSmen weak. Even my grandmother managed to climb over at least 10 times when she went marketing the last two weeks.”
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