Youth in schools and colleges across Maharashtra will receive training on all facets of electoral activities, thanks to the Election Commission of India. Come January 25th, Electoral Literacy Clubs will be established after already being initiated in a few schools and colleges across Maharashtra.
The children will sit through training sessions, informative programmes and seminars to absorb practical knowledge about all the steps involved in the entire electoral process.
The clubs themselves will require teachers, working and non-working staff of schools and colleges to be actively engaged. School authorities are also on board, as they believe that awareness at an early age is crucial.
This activity is a first, and the objective is to reach out to these children, and educate them before they reach legal voting age.
According to Anil Valvi, Chief Electoral Officer, in the Free Press Journal, children are quite often unaware about electoral procedures—something this club aims to remedy, with parents and teachers solving the kid’s queries. Teachers, mostly from the humanities departments, will be nodal officers and mentors for the club, with teachers having election duty experience given preference.
Working in conjunction, volunteers from the Electoral Literacy Club and schools will explain the entire procedure for casting a vote, encompassing voter registration, constituency information, the voting process itself, use and functioning of electronic voting machines, and different kinds of elections, says Valvi.
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The south zone education department in Mumbai asked all zonal schools to start this club, and cover it under formal education, to engage new voters through extracurricular activities. The circular regarding the club mentioned it should be established in schools, colleges, and professional and technical educational institutes.
Valvi also spoke to DNA and said that all schools and colleges would have to form Electoral Literacy Clubs by January 25th, 2018, which happens to be National Voters’ Day.