KUALA LUMPUR: Tan Sri Johari Abdul wants the Education Ministry to address why there are only 30 scouts per school.
The Dewan Rakyat Speaker said he would write to Education Minister Fadhlina Sidek to allow more students to join the scouts.
"There was a previous directive by the ministry to schools to allow only 30 students to join the scouts so that students can join the other uniformed bodies in their schools.
"But the scouts are the most popular and adventurous association which is most sought after by students seeking to join.
"So it (the directive) is not fair, and I will ask the ministry to rescind their previous directive," he told reporters at a press conference on Thursday (Nov 9).
Johari, a member of the National Scouts Council, said more students should be allowed to join the scouts to prepare them for the National Service Training Programme (PLKN), which would be revived next year.
On Oct 31, Defence Minister Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan announced the revival of the programme called PLKN 3.0, which targets youths who have completed their SPM examinations.
Phase 1 of PLK will involve the participation of students in uniformed bodies at the school level.
Under Phase 2, selected students who completed their SPM examination will undergo 45 days of basic military training at 13 Territorial Army camps nationwide, including the Police Training Centre (Pulapol) in Kuala Lumpur.
Meanwhile, Johari announced that the National Scouts Council would organise a charity dinner on Dec 1 at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre.
He said that the goal of the dinner was to raise funds to allow for more scouts programmes to be organised to benefit the community.
"We currently have about 12,000 King Scouts registered with the council, and there are many more who are not registered.
"I invite them to contribute by joining in the dinner," he said.
He said that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, who is the council's honourary president, and his deputies will be among the VIPs invited to attend the dinner.
There are currently about 300,000 scouts in the country, with plans to raise this number to 500,000 by 2025.
