Why are the educational qualifications of MPs a state secret?

by Staff Writer 06-08-2018 | 11:06 AM
COLOMBO (News 1st) - Pakistans Prime Minister-elect Nawaz Sharif has decided to keep the volume of the federal cabinet limited and award cabinet positions to those who are qualified in the subjects to lead a population of about 207 million people. The GDP of the country stands at 1.41 Trillion USD. The Cabinet of Ministers in Countries like Singapore, India, and Canada are also limited to several members. The Cabinet of ministers in Singapore, a country with a population of 5.5 million people, is limited to only 20 members. Whereas, the GDP of Singapore exceeds 290 billion USD. There are over 35 million people in Canada and yet the cabinet of ministers has been limited to 35. A speciality of the Canadian cabinet is that all its members are educated individuals. The GDP of Canada is 1.84 Trillion USD. There are only 27 members in the cabinet of ministers in India which has a population of 1.3 billion people. Majority of them are degree holders in the legal sector. The GDP of India exceeds 2 trillion dollars. A key promise given by the good governance government was that the cabinet of ministers will be limited to a minimum amount of members and that the cabinet will be appointed in a scientific manner. There are 41 members in the cabinet of ministers in Sri Lanka including the President out of which 10 are lawyers, 3 engineers, and one doctor. The Parliament website lists a majority of the remaining 27 members of the cabinet as businessmen and landowners. It is disappointing to note that some of them do not even possess that qualification. There are several public representatives who do not attend parliamentary sessions where the public problems are being discussed. The parliament has had 115 sessions since the government came into power. There are 16 members of the cabinet who have only attended 60 of those sessions. Addressing this issue Prof. M.O.A De Soyza of the Department of Political Science - University of Peradeniya stated that following remarks, "I saw on Facebook recently that over 100 parliamentarians do not have the SSC qualifications (O level). What intellectual governance can we expect from people like this? The problem today is why are uneducated people being elected. The reason is that the people cast their votes for these uneducated people. Here we have to say that the people too are acting imprudently. When uneducated people come into power they do not have a moral compass, they get into illegal activities. This is the situation in the country" Many countries have made public the details pertaining the education qualifications of their politicians. Why is our country not making education qualifications of politicians public? It is time for the people to choose wisely when it comes to appointing the public representatives.