Public policy education in India: promises and pitfalls of an emerging disciplinary identity

ABSTRACT

Despite the surge in global demand over the last few decades, the supply and design of public policy education has been notably concentrated within western and developed country contexts. The same era has not seen a comparable rise in public policy education and accreditation emerging from developing countries that are still unable to fully meet the existing domestic needs for these skills. In India, core public policy education is in its emerging, albeit promising stages. Drawing on several rounds of discussions with academic and administrative Heads of the Department for public policy in tertiary education institutes of India, this paper critically reviews three interrelated themes. Firstly, we illustrate the broad trends along which the discipline’s advancement has progressed, through changing policy and institutional contexts, and emerging policy analysis and public management challenges. Secondly, we explore the demand drivers for policy education and how they have been designed to respond to graduates’ career pathways and emerging job markets. Thirdly, we include a focus on the public policy and public administration faculty composition and their approach towards teaching public policy. Underlining these three emphases, we gauge the extent to which public policy programmes and schools have been influenced by external perspectives and approaches.

KEYWORDS:

• Public policy
• India
• Education

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank the distinguished scholars and experts on the topic of public policy education in India who provided their valuable feedback for this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Based on the publicly available outline of course offerings of universities included in this study, 9 of 29 offer a doctoral programme in public policy.

2. This is an estimate emerging from the research done for this paper in the context of public policy education, and is not based on an exhaustive search of public administration programmes in India.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ishani Mukherjee

Dr. Ishani Mukherjee is Associate Professor of Public Policy and Lee Kong Chian Fellow at the School of Social Sciences, Singapore Management University. Her expertise include policy formulation and design, environmental and natural resource policy, and policy tools for renewable energy and energy efficiency, particularly in Asia.

Dayashankar Maurya

Dayashankar Maurya is Associate Professor at the Graduate School of International Relations, International University of Japan. His research is concerned with governance, policy implementation, inter-organizational governance, health, and social policy. He has published papers in journals such as Public Management Review, Australian Journal of Public Administration and Social Policy & Administration.