One benefit of doing voluntary military service in Peru is the option of applying for the Scholarship Program 18-Armed Forces. There are factors that the young graduate weighs in order to choose to apply for the scholarship. The objective of this article is to show which are the factors that influence the decision of the young person to apply to the Scholarship Program 18-Armed Forces. The research is of an applied type having as population the young people who at that time were performing their service in the Air Group No. 7 of the Peruvian Air Force. Through a non-probabilistic convenience sampling, a sample of 40 young people was obtained and the questionnaire instrument was applied to them; the information collected was processed using the SPSS program, from which the level of reliability of the instrument was obtained, as well as its validity. The results found that there are individual factors such as personal aspiration and confidence in their abilities; socioeconomic factors such as limited economic support from the family; and academic factors such as school grade point average. It is also concluded that in order for young people to apply for the 18-Armed Forces Scholarship, the university chosen must meet certain conditions. With the above results, it is recommended that the institutions involved promote the granting of the 18-Fuerzas Armadas Scholarship, since it improves access, permanence and completion of higher education for young people with high academic performance and low economic resources, and at the same time it is an incentive mechanism to perform military service.

Keywords: Scholarship18; Voluntary Military Service; Air Force; university education; technical education.

The main benefit granted by the Voluntary Military Service to young people who have discharged from the Armed Forces is the option of applying to the Scholarship Program 18-Armed Forces. This scholarship allows them to enter university or technical education, becoming a professionalization alternative for the ex-soldier.

The Voluntary Military Service is the activity that allows a young person between 18 and 30 years of age to exercise his constitutional right and duty to participate in the national defense. Passing in Voluntary Military Service grants the young person, during and after the same, benefits and rights that seek to provide development opportunities. All the benefits, requirements and application of the same are contemplated in Law N°29248, known as the Military Service Law. The possibility of entering the Scholarship 18-Armed Forces program and continuing higher university or technical studies is one of the major attractions of voluntary military service.

On the other hand, equality and equity policies permeate all spaces of public management, being the educational sphere, the place of greatest incidence for the implementation of social inclusion. In that sense, inclusive education consists of an ongoing process to remove barriers to education and promote the reform of culture, policy and practice in schools to include all students (Schuelka, 2018). In that sense, young people who perform Voluntary Military Service in Peru are generally from low-income backgrounds. Therefore, the Scholarship program 18-Armed Forces, in its special modality, seeks to support them, providing the possibility of pursuing higher education. This allows the social inclusion promoted by the State to provide development opportunities for people whose quality of life is vulnerable.

The theoretical foundation of access to education for the disadvantaged and its relation to equal opportunities that generates growth and development in these vulnerable groups is synthesized by Dugarova (2015) in which she defined social inclusion as a process in which people at risk of poverty and social exclusion obtain the opportunities and resources necessary to participate fully in social activities. Social inclusion has also been seen as a basis for shared prosperity that characterizes the process of improving the skills, opportunities and dignity of the disadvantaged through access to markets, services and spaces.

This research is carried out with the purpose of conceptualizing and providing information on the factors that condition the applicants of the Air Group N°7 of the Peruvian Air Force for the entrance of the Scholarship Program 18-Armed Forces; likewise, the results were synthesized in a proposal, to be adhered as knowledge in the management of social projects and in the management of the administrative management of the military personnel, since it would be revealing that there are factors that influence the entrance of the applicants for the program granted by the State.

This research is of vital importance in the educational strengthening of the scholarship institution and the servants of the Armed Forces, since it seeks to provide the latter with information on the conditioning factors described so that they can face and not have any obstacle to their application to the program in question. The Peruvian Air Force's leadership and guidance would strengthen its social responsibility work as an institution.

Framed in the traditional relationship of variables such as military service and access to higher education, this article aims to determine the conditioning factors for admission to the Scholarship Program 18-Armed Forces, in young people who perform voluntary military service Air Group No. 7 of the Peruvian Air Force. It is proposed that individual, socioeconomic and academic factors are the ones that condition the entrance to the Scholarship 18-Armed Forces Program.

The present research is quantitative, according to its objective it is an applied research, since it not only sought information on the theories of the subject, but also sought to provide a solution to the research problem. The research design was non-experimental because the variables were not manipulated, but were taken in their natural context. (Hernández, Fernández, & Baptista, 2014). This design was elaborated as follows: M-------O-------X.

Where M=sample of the research, O=Observation variable, X=Variable of conditioning factors for entering the Scholarship Program 18-Armed Forces. The unit of analysis are the young people who were performing Voluntary Military Service in the Air Group N°7 of the Peruvian Air Force, in September 2019. The population is 40 young people from the military unit in question. The sample size is the universe of young people. This was obtained through non-probabilistic convenience sampling.

The research was guided based on the survey technique, which collected the data and structured them according to the perceptions obtained from the study sample, being this quantitative research, the survey serves for these purposes. The instrument was the questionnaire, which was structured with 23 questions, 13 of which are based on a Likert-type scale to measure perceptions in five values, where one is totally disagree and five totally agree; in addition to four initial questions that are closed and of a single value to be placed by the participant and 7 questions with multiple alternatives.

The analysis of the information was carried out using the SPSS version 23 program, from which the level of reliability of the instrument was obtained, as well as its validity. Subsequently, the descriptive statistics technique was used to respond to the specific objectives. It was then processed in tables and graphs to interpret them and support the study.

RESULTS

Individual factors

All the young applicants of Scholarship 18-Armed Forces, perform military service, with the possibility of being able to study a military or university career. The applicants consider military service as an option to achieve their professional dreams.

Figure 1. It has a professional project

Figure 2. Ability to fulfill professional project

Figure 3. Abilities to be able to apply for a state program

77.5% of the young people who are in the Voluntary Military Service have at least one professional project that drives them to continue with their higher education, since their desire to progress is based on projects and objectives (Figure 1). Likewise, 97.5% are confident in their ability to achieve this project (Figure 2). But what stands out most is that 85% are confident in their ability to be able to apply for a government program (Figure 3). Accessing a university or technical scholarship is the way to fulfill their professional project.

Socioeconomic factors

According to Table 2, the majority of respondents state that their family income does not exceed the minimum wage. The vast majority of applicants have the desire to pursue higher education, but their family income is one of their main disadvantages in achieving it. Therefore, 52.5% consider their family economy as a limiting factor in pursuing higher education (Figure 4). Ergo, 57.5% do not have family support to pursue higher education (Figure 5). A vacancy in the Scholarship program 18-Armed Forces would be an accessible solution for these young women.

Table 1.
Family income level of the young applicants to the Scholarship program 18-Armed Forces.

Income in soles	n	%
0 to 930	28	70%
930 or more	12	30%
Total	40	100%

Figure 4. Your family economy is a constraint to pursue higher studies 

Figure 5. Family support for pursuing higher education     

Academic factors

According to Table 3, 92.5% have completed their high school studies in a public school, and despite the fact that 47.5% of the young people performing military service had a grade point average in the range of fair and good (Figure 6), that same percentage considers having graduated from a public school to be a limitation (Figure 7). It is evident that the applicants are clear about their objective, which is to obtain a scholarship to achieve their goals and objectives.

Table 2.
Type of education received in high school

Type of education	n	%
Private	3	75.0%
Public	37	92.5%
Total	40	100.0%

Figure 6. Average grades

Figure 7. School from which you graduated is a constraint for pursuing higher education

Choice to apply to the program

Figure 8 indicates that those surveyed consider that the infrastructure of the university or institute is important before choosing where to study, since a better academic environment provides greater motivation for the applicant to fulfill his or her projects. Similarly, 52.5% of the young people consider whether the institute or university chosen has a job bank, since this would be a key point for when they graduate and enter the labor market (Figure 9).

Figure 8. Importance of the infrastructure of the eligible institute or university in the Scholarship program 18-Armed Forces.

 
Figure 9. Does the eligible college or university have a job bank?

DISCUSSION

According to the results obtained, the profile of the young men performing military service in the N°7 Air Group of the Peruvian Air Force shows that on average they are 20 years old, single men with no family responsibilities and without any serious disability that would prevent them from performing their military service and consequently their personal project of professional growth. Most of them have 18 months of service and are about to be discharged from military service and the possibility of applying to the Scholarship 18-Armed Forces program is latent and convincing, confirming the statistics of 100% of these teenagers who indicated that they entered military service with the purpose of being able to study a university or technical career. This result is consistent with research that affirms that economic, social and cultural barriers and the dynamics of power and exclusion within the educational space make it difficult for thousands of young people to enter and remain in higher education (Zavala & Córdova, 2010). Therefore, for this vulnerable population, military service is a necessary step for access to higher education.

The latter is important if we take into account that in Peru only 21% of young people manage to enroll in a university education center, while the rate in developed countries is 40% (Castro & Yamada, 2011). It is important to mention that not having basic studies completed also affects not only the troop personnel during their military service, but also, there are young people who after completing their military service, return to civilian society and do not find a suitable job that allows them to have access to a better life (Castillo, 2018).

In addition, 85% of the young people have a professional project and 97.5% feel capable of fulfilling it. Most of those surveyed (85%) agree that they are confident in their abilities to apply for a government program. The individual factors are the student's own, which become goals or objectives that they consider fulfilling in the not too distant future. These statements correlate with what García (2018) mentions in his study, which refers that most young people place great value on studying. Young people disagree that studying is a waste of time and not worthwhile. On the contrary, they consider as important reasons to study, to be able to learn practical skills; as well as critical thinking and creativity, but also to understand the world, learn social values and to be a good citizen (García, 2018).

In the socioeconomic factors, it was found that the family of most of the applicants has a salary not higher than the basic salary (S./ 930). It was also found that the family income or economy becomes a limiting factor for pursuing higher education. This is consistent with the 57% who say that they do not have family support to pursue higher education. Low access to higher education also has a correlation in terms of poverty. There is a regressive structure between poverty and access, since regions with a higher incidence of monetary poverty have less possibility of accessing tertiary education (Salazar-Morales, 2015). However, according to Roldán (2018), these factors function as social experiences and allow modeling people's personality and way of life.

In the academic factors, it was observed that 92.5% studied their secondary education in the public sector, while 7.5% in a private institution. In addition, it is evident that most of the respondents had an average of no more than 14 to 16 points. For Dukmak & Ishtaiwa (2015), this factor can serve to compete and apply to a program, as it presents school expectations, positive thinking and generate desired academic results. It is also worth noting that 47.5% of respondents agree that the school from which they graduated from high school is a constraint to pursue higher education. In relation to access to education, since education is sequential, the exclusion of a group from one of the stages will mean that this group will have fewer opportunities to access the next stage. Specifically, if a group of students - despite having completed secondary education - leaves the subsequent training period, this will mean fewer possibilities of access in the future, both for them and for their children (Castro & Yamada, 2011).

In the choice of applying to the Scholarship program 18-Armed Forces, 52% of the participants agree that the infrastructure of the institution eligible for Scholarship 18-Armed Forces is important, the same percentage of young people consider that the eligible institution has a job bank.

Voluntary military service is seen by low-income young people as a way to pursue higher education, whether university, technical or in the armed forces. The possibility of applying for the Scholarship 18-Armed Forces is an attractive option for young people who apply for the benefit. However, there are factors that the graduate considers in order to apply to the Scholarship program 18-Armed Forces.

Methodologically, it was found that convenience sampling was useful for this case and that the questionnaire allowed us to know the perspectives, reasons and projects of young people to perform military service and their position in relation to the Scholarship program 18-Armed Forces.

Regarding the results, it is observed that individual factors condition the entrance to the Scholarship program 18-Armed Forces. There is a large percentage of young people who show interest in continuing their studies and perform military service if they have a personal project to fulfill, and have a plan to follow after their time of service. In addition, they are confident in their abilities to enter a state educational program.

Socioeconomic factors condition the entrance to the Scholarship Program 18-Armed Forces. The young people who perform military service do consider that family income is a limiting factor, since for most of them their family works independently, they do not have a secure job and they barely earn a basic salary.

Academic factors condition admission to the Scholarship program 18-Armed Forces. Almost all of the young men who perform military service have studied in public schools and consider that the school from which they graduated is a limitation to pursue higher education. Even so, they are confident in their grades, as most of them had a grade average between 14 and 16, which is why they consider that they had an optimal academic performance.

The choice to apply to the Scholarship program 18-Armed Forces is based on the following aspects: most young people have a preference for a university that has good infrastructure, has a job bank and has a certain prestige.

Conflict of interest
There has been no conflict of interest.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
To the young men who performed voluntary military service in the 7th Air Group of the Peruvian Air Force.