Academy Election Debate

As India is gearing up for the National elections and waiting eagerly for the selection of the Prime Minister. We at The Aga Khan Academy felt it was the perfect moment (as the National elections are conducted only once in 5 years) to bring awareness and help children connect to the AKA strand of Governance and Civil Society.

Accordingly, our teachers took it up as a challenge to educate the students regarding this important moment in India’s history as it provided a wonderful opportunity to educate the students and make them aware about what is an election, why is it conducted, what is that the people of a country are looking for when they elect a leader.

 The event was spearheaded by Ms. Alexander Holland along with Jaimin our teaching faculty and they decided to organize a debate cum discussion, wherein the students of DP1 and MYP 5 would be acting as the representatives of the three big political parties. The preparation began at full pace with the very first criteria of understanding the political manifesto’s of these parties.

As most of us are aware that other than Indian National Congress and Bhartiya Janata Party, a new and very strong contender have come up in the past year who have pledged to eradicate the corruption from the Indian political system; The Aam Aadmi party – The common man. The students were divided into three groups representing the above mentioned parties.

On the D-day, 26^th of April 2014 the children gathered in the hall to witness and participate in this very intense debate. The three teams along with their coaches and the moderators sat facing the crowd. All the three parties presented their manifesto one after the other, and then the room was open to questions from the audience regarding their plans and policies.

As in any political debate the heated arguments went on to and fro between the parties for quite some time. Thanks to the moderators who kept time and did not allow the participants to get overwhelmed.

The event ended on a successful note, as we witnessed important questions like youth employment, education system and policies etc. from the student crowd , and the so –called political parties struggling to address the hard questions. It was very heartening to see the youth participating in this political and educational discussion, as one day they will be the future leaders of our country.

Submitted by Urbashi Raha (English Teacher)