The Ministry of National Defense (MND) plans to start implementing the volunteer system in 2010, reducing the number of conscripts annually with an aim to completely revert to the volunteer system in 2013, Defense Minister Chen Chao-min said Thursday.

According to the plan, the size of the troops will then eventually be reduced to 200,000 from the current 300,000 plus.

But the minister said further planning for financing military spending and restructuring the troops is needed.

Under the present conscription system, able-bodied males reaching the age of 18 have to serve in the military for one year.

While there are more conscripts than vacancies in the military, many of them are assigned to various other sectors, including police forces and private businesses, for 14 months of “alternative services.”

The planned revamping of the troops falls in line with President Ma Ying-jeou’s promises made during his presidential campaign that the military will adopt an all-volunteer system.

The ministry’s preliminary planning requires volunteers to serve four years, with a monthly income double the minimum wage, which currently is NT$17,280.

Males who do not volunteer for military services will still need to receive three or four months of basic military training, the defense minister said.

If the plan is implemented as scheduled, students entering the eighth grade after this summer will not have to be drafted.

The plan has sparked mixed reactions and various concerns, including the future lack of people assigned to the alternative services that many sectors presently rely on.

Interior Minister Liao Liou-yi said that participation in Taiwan’s alternative services would still be necessary even after the country’s troops consists only of volunteers.

The minister expressed the hope that the alternative services program will remain in the future.

Taiwan currently has 14,000 to 16,000 alternative service conscripts, according to the Interior Ministry.

The conscripts serve at local schools, fire departments, high-tech companies and other non-military government agencies in the fields of sports, diplomacy, tourism, medicine, culture and environmental protection.

Liao argued that such alternative services prevent the waste of human resources or time.

For example, he said, allowing alternative service conscripts to serve at local technology companies can both meet the companies’ needs for technology services and manpower, and help the conscripts keep their skills up to date.

Legislator Ting Shou-chung and Tsai Huang-liang, while supporting the all-volunteer system, said it would be unnecessary to maintain short-term military training for those who do not volunteer.

Tsai said three to four months of military training would be too long, while Ting argued that the trainees would not be able to learn much from such short training.

Legislator Chai Trong-rong said that the MND should first solve existing problems concerning volunteer servicemen before adopting an all-volunteer force.

Chai said many people find it difficult to adjust to military life after volunteering to become soldiers or officers.

But as no mechanism exists to allow them to quit before their contracts expire, there have been cases where volunteers intentionally misbehaved in attempts to receive a dismissal, he said.

Observers have also pointed out that the timeframe as it is set now in the plan may prompt many students currently in school to purposely delay graduating until 2013 to avoid being drafted. College students may choose to go to graduate schools. Students going to the ninth grade this fall are the ones that would become the last conscripts before the new system is implemented.

The ninth graders may simply repeat one more year at high school to dodge the conscription, the observers said.

But some college students said the volunteer military services would be a good choice of employment during economic downturn.