The Five Percent

Voting rights for under 18 The right to vote is the most privileged form of power vested in the people in a democracy. Not only does it give people the opportunity to choose their representatives, it also puts them and their representatives in the cycle of responsibility and accountability. According to Nepali laws, an individual must complete 18 years of age in order to be eligible to vote, while the constitution guarantees citizenship at the age of 16. This means that even after holding a citizenship, a 16-year-old youth is deprived of voting rights for two years until he or she reaches 18. In this article, we highlight this contradiction and stress that anyone who holds a citizenship must be given the right to vote. Who are denied? National Youth Policy (NYP) 2010 of Nepal defines “youth” as those belonging to the age group 16-40, which is 42 percent of the total population of Nepal. The age group between 16 and 18 number about 1.1 million (5 percent of population). This five percent qualify for citizenship but are deprived of voting rights. ‘Youth’ is a highly discussed age group in the demographic studies of every country. Youth represent both benefits and challenges. Stakeholders respond to youth through different sets of policies and programs for development and social change. Youth population is different across counties and institutions. United Nations, for instance, considers youth as an age group between 16-24; according to the World Bank it is the population between 15-24; in India those aged between 13-35 are considered Youth; the corresponding figures for Pakistan and Japan are 13-35 and 0-24 respectively; whereas in Nepal, National Youth Policy 2010 defines it to be within the age bracket of 16-40 years. Policy eagles see youth as the cream of all age groups, because it is the time when an individual reaches his/her highest biological (bodily integration), psychological (intellectual ability, thinking, reasoning), social (responsibility, roles, values, marriage) and economic (income generation, career) maturity. Moreover, other age categories, mainly children and elderly, are also largely dependent on this age bracket. The youth are the drivers of development, and also integral entries in demographic listings. Despite all these national and international considerations, it is worth noting that this age group, generally referred to as the harbinger of change, is the most unfortunate age group in Nepal, as they are denied the right to vote. Isn’t curtailing the basic political right of a group with such high potential absurd? This is the common question that five percent of our population is asking today. Global practices  After World War I, most countries set voting age as 21 or higher. Later, many reduced voting age according to their convenience. However, by the beginning of the 21st century, in common practice 18 years became the most common voting age. But different countries have different voting ages. Cuba, Isle of Man, Nicaragua and Guernsey allow their citizens to vote at 16. In Cameroon, Fiji, Malaysia, Singapore, and a few other countries, citizens have to wait until they are 21 to vote.  A few countries have 17 or 19 as voting age. Surprisingly, a few countries have rationalized voting age on the basis of election. In Austria, general voting age is 16, but for European parliament elections it’s 18. Similarly, in Israel, general voting age is 18, but for municipal election it is 17. Citizens aged 16-18 in Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro acquire the right to vote if they are employed. In a nutshell, voting age at 16 is generally not a new concept in the world. Given the political will, it can be adopted even in Nepal, considering that the government has already recognized the age group of 16-17 as ‘youth’ having citizenship rights. Demeny System Additionally, in global context there are organizations like Vote 16 and the Socialist Party of the US which have been advocating for lower voting age. But the idea of reducing voting age had been proposed even earlier. In 1986, it was demographer Paul Demeny who floated the idea of reducing voting age. His idea was later named “Demeny Voting system” by Warren C. Sanderson in 2007. The idea is to allow children to voice their political agendas through parents or guardians. Generally, in this system, parents would cast a proxy vote for each of their dependent children. The vote is considered a ‘half vote’; if parents’ choices are different, the child’s vote would be counted as ‘split vote’. This idea was discussed in Germany, Japan, Hungry, and the debate continues. In 2003 and 2008 parliament elections, Germany introduced the idea of Demeny voting system in parliament. Conclusion The debate of lowering voting age is not yet in mainstream political agenda in Nepal, and has not become a popular issue. When countries around the world are discussing ways to address children’s political voice through votes, Nepal is still constraining the voting rights of five percent of its population. It is high time we brought this issue to the table with necessary revision in our legal arrangements. Although the five percent cannot vote in the upcoming election, those who are eligible must exercise their right to vote, fully participate in the second Constituent Assembly election, and take the nation forward. The authors are youth activists upretipratyush@gmail.com kanchan@yuwa.org.np Published on The Republica, 12 November, 2013, http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=64433

Overhauling Social Work Education

The development of Professional Social Work (SW) education in Nepal is in its ‘youth’ stage. It has completed 17 years since its inception in 1996. Like any adolescent, SW education in Nepal is experiencing complex issues and challenges

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Many social work graduates drop out prior to their Masters in Social Work while over 1,000 students from more than 34 colleges under four different universities graduate each year in Nepal. But not even one-tenth of these graduates opt for Master’s degrees. Many argue that having insufficient institutions to pursue Master’s degree program in Nepal is the primary reason behind such a huge dropout rate. Others add that the low quality of the available Master’s-level SW education is the key reason for such withdrawal.

I think the problems lie within the colleges offering Bachelor’s degree in Social Work. There’s a crisis in the philosophical, pedagogical and administrative understanding of SW education. Philosophical relates to “why should a college start a social work education and how should it orient its students who want to pursue this discipline.”

Overhauling Social Work Education (Comment Version)

Published in The Republica-Gennext of 3rd April, 2013

I am very happy to receive comments on my article 'Overhauling Social Work in Nepal' published on 3rd April, 2013. I hope to see changes in Social Work (SW) education system in Nepal. I am sure SW educators and institutions will work collectively for improvisations. 

Here are some of the important comments that I received. 

Ritesh Manandhar, Social Worker, writes, 

• Insightful piece indeed and a slap with the reality of how it is going! Wonderful! 
  I would like to forward a feedback (just a thought): Going through the initial paras, I was looking for a little background/context, if you had also somewhere mentioned how is 'social work' really practiced in Nepal, the wrong concept of 'we people' taking foreign social work practices as best suited all the time, high time need to create our own but effective ways of social work practices, etc., which in a para or two would do, I guess. WITH this, I think, it would also shed a little light upon to the general people around from a social work graduates' eyes! (I know, this could be just out of context but there is also a possibility to weave the context and get a flow.) Nevertheless, the article is already 'a way to go'! Thanks for being the voice on behalf of all of us!

Dipendra K.C, President, YUWA says

• "सर बधाई छ है ! अब चाहिँ सोसल ओर्क कलेज अलि डराउनु पर्ला...कलमहरु चल्न थाले" 
  
  

  Very rich and well articulated, all the variables considered are quiet interesting and strong.....keep writing more.. You gave me good insights on SW education condition in Nepal .. - Nirakar Sapkota

  We should interlink with the everything in happening in society. I don´t think social work is not good profession. The problem starts from colleges but not from the profession. The colleges misused the social work profession. Yes we need Social Work policy in Nepal to get secure the social worker´s future. - Ganesh Budha

  Great topical article. This will definitely push social graduate schools to enhance their quality with criticism, suggestions and pinching on their pcckets by weeding out poor quality colleges who do not perform as per students´s expectations! - Amulya Tuladhar, professor, KU

   

From, 

Antony Chettri, Social Worker, India

Ex. Lecturer, St, Xavier's college. 

Dear Kanchan,

I read it and tried to leave my own comments below the article hope it got saved (as my internet was slow when I was writing the comment). What I want to say is that good articulated article. I like your interest and passion to really think on the issues related with social work education in Nepal. The issues are really pertinent to Nepal and also for south Asia. I congratulate you for your good effort.

To share you something that may guide you to improve your next article on this topic (I hope that you will go on writing on this topic), I would like to propose that be more authentic by collecting scientific data from the field and analyze it from different perspectives. It will enhance your article. Like when you talk about licensing - do not just say it because it is there in some of the western countries but weight it with proper rationale. Secondly if people start MSW or apply for MSW with financial consideration, then is it totally wrong? Answer this question with proper data so that alternative thoughts are enforced.

When you write such article please avoid being moralistic... people will either hate to read it or will put it aside after reading it. No action will be taken. So be data based with proper rational.

You have done it well and my suggestions are just to reflect... if you like it use it or just throw it in dustbin.

Wish you all the best. I missed you all teaching that will be one of my biggest regret in life. But still u all think me as your teacher I am obliged for it.

I love you all.

Your humble Anthony Sir 

***Please click on the link below for the article***

Published on The Republica-Gennext of 3rd April, 2013

Has democracy been successful to reduce poverty in Nepal?

In order to answer this question, we must, at first, try to find out in what ways ‘democracy’ and ‘poverty’ are related in context of Nepal. Implicit in this statement are answers about why democracy came in the country during 1950s-for the first time in history, and again in 1990s- as an effort of restoring democracy. In the mean time, ‘poverty’, in case of Nepal, appears to be an outcome of the past autocratic regimes, and as a gifted challenge to the democracy. On that ground, I will make an attempt to see -to what extent- democracy has been successful to address the problem of poverty in the country.

Poverty, in case of Nepal, is an outcome of the past autocratic regimes, by all accounts. For instance, until 1951 i.e. during the 104-year-old autocratic Rana regime, Nepal experienced the picture of severe economic stagnation. The hills areas experienced an acute shortage of labor even for normal agricultural operations, leading to conditions of acute scarcity on famine (Shaha, 1990). This was because Nepalese people who were abroad, mainly in India, did not wish to return because of their growing dissatisfaction with the condition of life inside their own country. In contrary, the Rana administration lived the most luxurious life ever with the wealth of the country on their side, while Nepalese people were subjected to extreme poverty. Shaha writes that in those days, as even now to an extent, Kathmandu presented a striking picture of contrast between extreme poverty and vast wealth (1990). In such a scenario, Democracy, for the first time in Nepal in 1951, became a tremendous hope for Nepalese against their extreme poverty situation.

The interim democratic era (1951-1960), nine years of infant democracy, could not produce much in terms of reducing the problem of poverty, but it achieved significantly in terms of signing new treaties, agreements, admission, etc. For instance, conclusion to Delhi Agreement, first foreign aid agreement with United States in 1951- named four point program which was soon followed by India (in the same year), China (1956) and USSR (1958), membership of UN (1955), etc (Aryal, Subedi, & Thapa, 2010)  . In addition, the spirit of the first five years plan (the beginning of the planned development initiatives in the history of Nepal), launched in 1957, was overshadowed by another political upheaval in 1960 i.e. the beginning of the Panchayat Era.

NGOs driven Bottom-up development: a western influence over the traditional development practices in Nepal

Concept of Bottom-Up Development

During 1970s, the concept of the ‘Bottom-up’ development emerged as an antithetical view to ‘top-bottom’ development process, and thus claimed to reverse the directionality of the development decision making. Main focuses were given on community participation, conscientization, self-reliance, freedom of choices and empowerment. Also, it challenged the main features of the ‘top-bottom’ paradigm, mainly ‘planning arrogance’ of the experts and technocrats, and even questioned the paternalistic nature of the state in the development process. Moreover, the overall idea of development shifted to ‘people/community-centric’ approach to which the Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs), on the other side, responded as care takers. Since then, the role of NGOs in giving life to ‘bottom-up’ development has been hugely recognized and appreciated. The theoretical advantages of the NGOs over the state were one of the main reasons that helped in gaining tremendous popularity

WHY NEW CONSTITUTION?

A TV reporter asked a famous politician, ‘why new constitution?’, in reply the politician said, ‘new constitution for people, for democracy, for peace, justice, for establishing people’s governance, for development, and the list went on and on......’. By then I realized why it becomes so difficult to understand the politician’s speech. The simple answer is they just don’t want people to understand the reason behind their politics. May be I am wrong but what can I do because I just don’t understand. Isn’t it my right not to understand them and express my feeling for not understanding them? 

Photo: K P Kharel

Few days back, my friend shared me a story as his mom was sitting on the terrace with a newspaper on her hand, he happened to ask her, ‘why new constitution?’ She answered him in a soft voice, ‘for people...’ Then again he questioned, ‘what do people want?’ She said, ‘People want employment, security, development...’ Again the confused state of his mind argued her, ‘So that means state became failure in the past and thus by bringing new constitution it will come in its shape?!?’