I started a bit of chat about this on Twitter the other day, and am curious to see what the experts here think of this suggestion.

It started off as a tongue-in-cheek reply to the idea of gender quotas, where I suggested that it might be a better idea to require parties to field a certain percentage of candidates with qualifications relevant to government. That would be interesting in itself!

But then I got thinking, and being mindful of certain scenes in the Dáil earlier last year, when it was clear that some deputies had little understanding of procedure, and also of Mary Davis' idea of refusing to sign an unfair budget, what would you think of the following idea, which doesn't necessarily have to be élitist at all

- when handing in nominations to returning officer for any election (local, general, European, Seanad, Presidential) the candidate must also present a certificate of completion (say level 6 NFQ, HETAC type) of a course in basic government function.
- it could very easily be something done online, over the course of a couple of weeks
- modules on the basic architecture of government, Dáil, consititution, EU etc
- obviously could be expanded in the future (module on ethics perhaps?!) but the fundamental idea would be to ensure that nobody gets on the ballot paper for an election to a position which they don't understand.

How controversial is that? Ensuring that our elected representatives have a basic understanding of how our constitution works?

Suggestions for module titles and course contents welcome