Natty netas: A distant dream
PAARTH JOSHI
Electoral forms are perhaps the only place where you can skip the question that asks for your educational qualification without any fear of being reprimanded. For, when AT contacted the Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) to get the educational details of the contestants jousting for positions at the election on Sunday, we got to know there is no list that shows the educational qualifications of the contestants. The only way these details could be obtained, AT was told, was by scanning the records of the nine election officers, which for obvious reasons wasn’t possible with just a day to go before the polls.
Nevertheless, we called up the local party offices to collect the data. The ruling party though, hadn’t compiled a list of the educational achievements of their candidates. So we got in touch with all the contestants to find out their educational record. And this is what we found: Of the 166 candidates from the BJP and the Congress, approximately 48 per cent are undergraduates while 25.6 per cent have studied till class X or even less. Are the statistics alarming? Should there be a minimum educational qualification to be able to contest elections? Or has education nothing to do with governance skills?
Amita Verma, founder director of the Women Studies Research Centre and former acting vice-chancellor of MSU says ‘aye’ to the need. “The people who govern must have some kind of vision and exposure. The ability to understand and analyse can’t come without education,” says Verma. “And when I say minimum qualification, I mean education in a broader sense and not just any degree.”
Sargam Gupta, managing director of a group that runs schools in Vadodara says, “The minimum eligibility should be post graduation with some experience. It’s alarming to see how ministers are handed portfolios even when they don’t know much about a particular department. It’s like asking a psychologist to operate a patient,” says Gupta.
Prof Anand Mavalankar, head of the department of Political Science, however, feels that though education certainly helps, it can’t be a criteria for assessing a person. “Not all contestants may be privileged to a higher education. A college degree is too much to ask for and this way you may rule out members of certain sections of society,” he says. Perhaps, it requires only common sense to gauge the situation and implement ‘new’ ideas. But why are those on the hot seat making the same mistakes? “Highly educated people may want to change the present system of governance and hence pose a threat to those already in seats of power. It is an intelligent strategy to keep undereducated people coming. They will do what they are told,” says Niruben Patel, a BJP candidate who has served as a school principal for 15 years.
Cast your vote!
PAARTH JOSHI
Electoral forms are perhaps the only place where you can skip the question that asks for your educational qualification without any fear of being reprimanded. For, when AT contacted the Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) to get the educational details of the contestants jousting for positions at the election on Sunday, we got to know there is no list that shows the educational qualifications of the contestants. The only way these details could be obtained, AT was told, was by scanning the records of the nine election officers, which for obvious reasons wasn’t possible with just a day to go before the polls.
Nevertheless, we called up the local party offices to collect the data. The ruling party though, hadn’t compiled a list of the educational achievements of their candidates. So we got in touch with all the contestants to find out their educational record. And this is what we found: Of the 166 candidates from the BJP and the Congress, approximately 48 per cent are undergraduates while 25.6 per cent have studied till class X or even less. Are the statistics alarming? Should there be a minimum educational qualification to be able to contest elections? Or has education nothing to do with governance skills?
Amita Verma, founder director of the Women Studies Research Centre and former acting vice-chancellor of MSU says ‘aye’ to the need. “The people who govern must have some kind of vision and exposure. The ability to understand and analyse can’t come without education,” says Verma. “And when I say minimum qualification, I mean education in a broader sense and not just any degree.”
Sargam Gupta, managing director of a group that runs schools in Vadodara says, “The minimum eligibility should be post graduation with some experience. It’s alarming to see how ministers are handed portfolios even when they don’t know much about a particular department. It’s like asking a psychologist to operate a patient,” says Gupta.
Prof Anand Mavalankar, head of the department of Political Science, however, feels that though education certainly helps, it can’t be a criteria for assessing a person. “Not all contestants may be privileged to a higher education. A college degree is too much to ask for and this way you may rule out members of certain sections of society,” he says. Perhaps, it requires only common sense to gauge the situation and implement ‘new’ ideas. But why are those on the hot seat making the same mistakes? “Highly educated people may want to change the present system of governance and hence pose a threat to those already in seats of power. It is an intelligent strategy to keep undereducated people coming. They will do what they are told,” says Niruben Patel, a BJP candidate who has served as a school principal for 15 years.
Cast your vote!
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