This article has been written by Mohini Singla. Mohini is currently a student in Army Institute of Law, Mohali.

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

– Nelson Mandela

In India, it is the need of the hour to introduce educational qualification to be set as criteria for the elections of Members of Parliament. The eligibility criteria for contesting MP election by providing that a candidate must have passed class 10 of the board of secondary education or its equivalent. This condition to contest election is not arbitrary in nature and thus does not affect anyone’s right to contest elections. This criterion is to be set initially only for Members of Parliament as they are the principal law-makers of the state so a state needs intelligent administrators to run its government. It is not arbitrary as Article 14 is not affected as there is reasonable classification. As Right to contest election is merely a statutory right and not fundamental right.

RECOMMENDATION

1. It should be started with the Members of Parliament as it could not be started from ground level, as due to still prevailing illiteracy in the country. But for election of such high standard officials this criteria could easily be implemented in the country. This criterion should then slowly be formed basis of election in every sphere and a minimum level should be set up for every general election taking place in the
2. It will motivate people at all levels to get educated as it will act as a reformative measure. Everyone in the country will try and get education and especially people who want to get into politics will get educated first. Education enhances a person’s ethics and civilizes a person as well. A civilized society fastly moves towards development. Hence this will lead to easy development of the nation. It will act as a reform and will act as a stimulator for people to get them educated first and then enter into
3. It should initially be set at matriculation level as somewhere the bench mark has to be set and anything lower to this will lead to complete ineffectiveness of the programme and anything higher to such is not possible to be achieved at such a level. As India still faces a lot of problem of illiteracy which could not be instantly sorted. It has been a issue for decades but such a reform will help people and motivate them to act for the
4. This Criterion should then slowly be added to all other election procedures. All elections if have such qualification criteria would enhance the education standards of the State. This will lead to growth and prosperity of the nation and will help in building better future for
5. This qualification if added would enhance the quality education as there is a lot of problem of proper education system to be developed this will fulfill this requirement. As politicians are the ones who frame new policies, they will take special care for educational

Indian government would look into education systems and make sure these inconveniences are covered up sufficiently. On the other hand, we can find people who are serious in their thoughts to fill in these issues and promote the quality of each educational institution. We can find the growing number of Computer study centres, students’ labs, tutorial institutes etc. that makes education in India move on faster. And this will lead to quality education in the country and would render some new changes to the education system that is required in the present scenario.