BIPARD Roundtable on Strengthening Training as a Key to Administrative Reforms

Presentation by

Pushpendra
Tata Institute of Social Sciences Mumbai

Critical Gaps in Training

Critical gaps in capacities and capabilities which can be addressed through education and training programmes at various levels:
Training institutions have very little practical

experience of doing what they are training in and have very little touch with the intricacies of ground-level realities, implementation and social engineering.

Critical Gaps
Training institutions are located at a geographical

distance, far removed from where the actual development intervention is scheduled to take place. These institutes are run by personnel who speak a language which is largely incomprehensible to the people and whose attitude is didactic rather than dialogic, and who seem to lack the passion for the work which their training will enable.

Critical Gaps
A very serious lacuna has been the absence of any kind

of follow-up in the field to ensure that the benefits of training are materialised at the field-level for which it was meant. Training also tends to become too specific. Overall, the planning and implementation requirements can become so tightly structured that it discourage imaginative and innovative training methods, sticking to what is allowed.

Curriculum Framework

Curriculum framework based on four objectives:

Strong values through a set of foundational courses

that provide the basis for understanding policy, programmes and field based issues; Theoretical and conceptual understanding to develop the ability to engage with abstractions and empirical realities with equal ease;

Curriculum Framework
Analytical and problem solving, planning and project

management skills to facilitate the comprehension of large data sets, unpack policy perspectives, generate sensitive qualitative and qualitative data and implement programmes; Strong field based learning to comprehend micro, meso and macro issues

Components of Curriculum Framework

For heuristic purposes these objectives are structured as five important strands: Perspective Building Courses: Foundational courses in understanding society, economy, politics along with a strong understanding of constitutional guarantees, rights and justice. Analytical Skills Courses: To grapple with, generate and analyze and infer from data; to develop the skill in handling various software; to systematically analyze policies and programmes and to understand project management cycle and ways of intervening in monitoring and in course correction.

Components..
Governance Courses: To build the theoretical

understanding of the State, its various formations linked to power, authority, property, economy, legal frameworks, etc.; state based institutions, political formations, interest groups, conflicts, democracy and identity politics; Various social movements and civil society struggles that attempt to rework governance structures, and right to information related activism propelling mechanisms for deepening democracy.

Components
Rural Development Courses: A foundational set of

theoretical courses that clarify the understanding of development, debates on development, and the trajectory of development in India with particular reference to issues of rural poverty and the social sector; Broad-based information on various national rural development programmes and their trajectories; and a sound understanding of natural resources and livelihoods to help participants comprehend the location of various forms of agro-ecological conditions that determine variations in rural economy, its linkages to the markets and the development politics.

Components
Experiential Learning: To build critical learning

abilities through a systematic planning of field-based exposure. Field-based work at any one of the levels (village, district with Governmental or NGO structures). Participants to develop either a research paper or a micro plan or a problem solving strategy to deal effectively with any of the sectoral issues education, employment, water, sanitation, nutrition, health, livelihoods and so on.

Thanks