The Ministry of National Defense (MND) wishes to elaborate on the media coverage “armed forces are in thirst for non-commissioned officers as non-commissioned are encouraged to become commissioned officers”, as follows:

1. Currently, non-commissioned officer recruitment has reached 80% of its target; hence, there is no “shortage of non-commissioned officers”, as claimed by media. The current scheme to encourage non-commissioned officers to become commissioned officers is to increase the number of low-ranking commissioned officers, which now has seen a continuous and stable increase thanks to the aforementioned scheme and the policy of “national defense nurturing program”, carried out jointly by the MND and senior or vocational high schools.

2. The MND further points out that it always weighs the importance between quality and quantity, and therefore takes an approach to incrementally increase recruitment by batch supplements, so as to avoid forming a manpower gap that would occur when a sudden loss of non-commissioned officers requires a large supplement. It is expected that the overall voluntary recruits would reach 90% target by 2020, which can effectively support war preparations and carry out combat missions.