Hi Agthatsme,
The military operates on a 5.5days work week. This means that by
right, he is supposed to be in camp from Mondays to Fridays and on
Saturday mornings. However, what is practiced is much different.
Depending on training demands and the availability of training
resources such as location (military training area in Singapore is
scarce and is therefore shared by many different factions), he may
be required to have trainings during his weekends. However, if this
is the case, he will be given off in leau.
Most enlistees with a diploma and above, will very likely be
given the chance to be a commander. As such his Basic Training in
total will be somewhere between 9 months (for specialists) to 1
year (for office cadets) inclusive of the 3 months of
BMT.
His annual leave during this period is allocated by the military
during appropiate periods, as due to limited national service
liability period, his training will be quite intensive, therefore
he may not be able to take leave as and when he would like to.
Now, if he is alone in Sunny Singapore, you might also want to
note that many trainees bring back lots of laundry. They do have
the option of washing their clothes in camp, however commercial
laundry services are not available in ALL camps and there are no
washing machines in the Basic Military Training Centre. So you
might want to take this into consideration.
Also, in some scenarios, your son, may request from his Officer
Commanding (OC) if he can stay in camp on weekends, though this
arrangement would be approved on a case by case basis depending on
the resources available for your son. Though i highly recommend
that you provide him with accomodation off base for his off
days.
