V Maitreyan, Member of Parliament, expressed the essence of what all the panelists stood for during the last session of the ThinkEdu Conclave 2018, a discussion on whether a better education system leads to a cleaner political system, when he said, "You can educate a politician but you cannot shape his mind and character through classes."
The session was chaired by editorial director of TNIE Prabhu Chawla, who opined how, "the education system is not producing anything good, let it be politicians, judges or artists." The Chief Minister of Puducherry V Narayanasamy not only agreed but showed confidence in the fact that indeed, good education would churn out good politicians and automatically, "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 between the ages of 14 to 18-year-olds, he said, across 28 districts of the country were surveyed among which, 60% couldn't identify the state they belong to. "This is the kind of education the political class who elects these politicians receives," he said. He pointed out the fact that essential to the cleansing of the political system are the citizens who need to have an education that gives them a sense of sound judgment.
Truchi N Siva, Member of the Parliament also expressed his concern about the meager 5-6% of the GDP that is invested in education.
As a conclusion, when Chawla fielded the question of whether regional politics puts pressure on the kind of education that should be provided, V Maitreyan asked that it shouldn't be qualified as regional politics but regional aspirations, "It is the regional politicians who are tuned into these aspirations, which is why initially, education was in the state list and not in the concurrent. And in the name of concurrent list, anything and everything is being foisted on the state."
