The issue regarding the lack involvement of youths in politics in New Zealand should be a concern to the government. This issue arose due to few indicators that urge the responsible party to start taking drastic actions to overcome this problem. Youths involvement in politics can be seen from many aspects and one of them is through general voting. Youths involvement in voting has been seen to be declining and according to Edwards (2017), older people have higher tendency to involve themselves in voting compared to the younger group. The low engagement of youths in politics could give negative impacts to the country in both long and short term perspective. Therefore, this essay will clarify why this issue should be addressed and the factors that lead to this problem. Additionally, possible solutions will be stated in order to overcome this issue. Lastly, the way to evaluate the effectiveness of the solutions will also be discussed.
One of the reasons why youth should participate in politics is because of the unheard problems that they face. This is due to lack of concentration given by the politicians to this group as they are not being well represented and therefore their opinions and arguments are not being voiced out (Boutros,2016). As stated by Hilary & Emmanuel (2013), youths have better perspectives of the issues that affect them and could help the government in making decisions for issues involving the community of their age. For example, the issue that is related to the young community is the fading of national pride and the feel of patriotism within themselves as well as the increasing rate of drug abuse among the youths (Stanberry, 2011). Issues such as the increase in crime rate could emerge if this problem is not solved. Therefore, it is important for the youths to engage in political activities in this country to ensure their voices and problems are heard.
One the factors that negatively affect the interest of young people towards politics is the feeling of distrust towards politicians. As mentioned earlier, the voices of the youths are barely heard as it is difficult for the government to satisfy and fulfill the demands and needs of a different group of individuals in a society. On the other hand, the youths view the politicians as untrustworthy and not as people who give inspiration to the community. Hence, the political system is seen as corrupt as if it is being governed by dishonest politicians that only care about being famous and wealthy. For example, numerous news regarding scandals and scams involving politicians that have become a norm these days make politicians look like people who are selfish and would do anything to fulfill their personal desires (Merchant, 2015). Therefore, the youths believe that being involved in politics will not bring any positive changes for them. For that reason, the feeling of distrust towards politicians is most likely to affect the interest of the youths.
Secondly, the reason the youths are not interested to engage in politics is because they do not see interesting career opportunities for them in the political field. Moreover, in their perspective, the politics are only meant for older people who have more experience. Most importantly, the youths never really get the exposure of the advantages and all the opportunities that they would be able to grab if they involve in the political field (Merchant,2015). For example, they are not being well informed that by participating in the political field they would be able to contribute brilliant ideas that would bring positive impacts to the community. Furthermore, by being a politician they could gain knowledge that could make them more mature in making decisions thus making them a good leader in the future. Therefore, it is strongly believed that the lack of knowledge of the opportunities they will get by being involved in the politics is one of the reasons youths are not engaged in the politics.
Therefore, in order to overcome the problems mentioned earlier, numbers of important actions have to be taken. Firstly, introduce civics and citizenships education in school to give exposure and knowledge to young people regarding politics. Civics can be defined as the formal study of institutions and processes of civic life such as voting, while citizenship education is the study of how does the society work and how a community is built. These educations are very vital in encouraging and to make young people realize the importance of voting and being involved in politics (White,2014). However, these educations can also be provided informally or outside the school. For example, a campaign of the importance of voting can be held prior to general voting to raise awareness among the younger community. As a result, the youths could have a better understanding of the country's constitutional arrangement thus giving them the knowledge of how to become more responsible and engaged citizens. Hence, this will encourage them to be more engaged with political activities.
The next possible solution to this problem is to get more young politicians to be more active in the community. Normally, people who are elected to Parliament tend to be older compared to the average age of an adult in a society. This would make the youths feel isolated as there are no politicians to represent people of their age (Edwards,2017). Therefore, the government and political institutions should start searching for young candidates who have great qualities to qualify for a seat in the parliament. Furthermore, these institutions could give incentives to attract more young candidates. For example, these institutions can offer training to improve their soft skills such as debating skills as well as gaining confidence in public speaking. Consequently, when there are more young politicians competing in the election, more young people will feel interested to vote thus making them more engaged with political activities. Therefore, the answer to the lack of youths engagement in politics is to have more age diversity in political parties.
Lastly, one of the most effective ways to attract youth's interest to get involved in politics is to use the right medium to communicate with them. According to University of Chicago (2012), approximately 52% of young Americans are sending messages, sharing status updates and links, or chatting online on daily basis. Furthermore, 84% of social media users among the youth believe that all the information that they found and read on the internet are trustworthy. Therefore, politicians can take these statistics to their advantage by start communicating with the youth through social media in order to get them more engaged with politics. For example, participatory politics acts such as posting political videos and making a political group discussion online in social medias such as Twitter and Facebook could possibly attract social media users which mainly consist of young people to get engaged and get more information regarding politics. For these reasons, communicating with the youth through social media can be seen as an effective solution.
One of the ways to assess whether the solutions mentioned earlier have made positive impacts in the short term or not is to look at the youth's participation in political events. The problem associated with the youths is they tend to ignore events related to politics due to mentioned possible causes earlier. Therefore, youths involvement in political events such as general election can be an indicator whether the solutions work or not. As an example, the figure of voters turnout among the youths would probably tell us the effectiveness of the methods. According to Electoral Commission New Zealand (2014), the rate of non-voters among the youths in the 2014 general election was 37.27%. Therefore, if this figure is to be seen decreasing in the upcoming general election, it can be concluded that the methods are well executed. This would indicate that the youths are showing their interest towards politics and are more aware of their responsibility as a citizen. Therefore, youth’s participation in political activities would be a good guide to evaluate the successfulness of the solutions.
Additionally, in the long term perspective, a way to evaluate the effectiveness of the solutions is to assess the ability of the country to produce quality youngsters which have interest in learning politics for the sake of the country. If the country has this ability, then it shows that the solutions discussed work well in attracting young people towards politics. Malaysia can be an example for a country that produces a quality young politician. According to Kumar (2016), Syed Saddiq, a young politician from Malaysia, believes that there are youths who are vocal in the country but they are just minority which makes their opinions to be unheard. For that reason, he must participate in politics in order to make changes to the country. This young politician shows a great nationalism spirit due to his love towards the country. Therefore, if New Zealand could produce young people with great patriotism, the solutions can be considered as successful.
The lack of youth involvement in political activities in this country which probably due to lack of trusts among the youths towards politicians as well as not seeing any interesting career opportunities in the political field should be a concern. Although the immediate effect from this situation is yet to be seen, eventually problems like unheard opinions of the youths and lack of quality leaders in the future would arise. Hence, effective actions such as involving more young active politicians in the election, introducing civic and citizenship education as well as using the right medium to communicate with young people should be implemented in order to attract the interests of youth towards politics. Ultimately, it is strongly believed that if proposed solutions are being applied, the rate of youths that turn out in the upcoming general voting will increase compared to the last one thus improving youth involvement in politics in overall perspective.