V Maitreyan, Member of Parliament (MP), expressed the essence of what all the panelists stood for in the last session on Wednesday, Does a better education system lead to a cleaner political system?, when he said, “You can educate a politician but you cannot shape his mind and character through classes.”
The four panelists went on to deliberate on it further after he opined how, “the education system is not producing anything good, let it be politicians, judges or artists,” to which Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy agreed and beamed confidence in the fact that indeed, good education would churn out good politicians and, “those who attain value-based knowledge will be better at administration.”
For establishing that when we talk about education cleansing politics, it is important to talk about the political class and not just the politicians, the Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha quoted a part of the Annual Status of Education Report.
About 30,000 14 to 18-year-olds, he said, across 28 districts of India were surveyed among which, 60 per cent couldn’t identify the state they belong to.
“This is the kind of education the political class receive,” he said, establishing the fact that essential to cleansing of the political system are citizens who need to have an education that gives them a sense of sound judgement while Tiruchi N Siva, DMK MP, expressed concern about the meagre 5-6% of the GDP that is invested in education.