Prominent institutes like the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A), IIM-Bangalore (IIM-B), The Environment and Research Institute (Teri) University and Management Development Institute (MDI), Gurgaon, which offer the one- and two-year public management and policy programmes, are seeing a growth in applications.
This, despite the difference in fees for government and non-government employees. In recent times, the fee difference between government and non-government candidates for the public management policy programmes has been a cause of concern. At IIM-A, for instance, the fee for non-government candidates has risen from Rs 9 lakh in its first batch to Rs 12 lakh and Rs 16 lakh for the second and third batches, respectively for its post-graduate programme in Public Management and Policy (PGP-PMP). The fees for government candidates has remained constant at Rs 7.25 lakh. Similarly at IIM-B, government candidates pay Rs 4.5 lakh while others pay Rs 9 lakh.
Both IIM-A and IIM-B are tightlipped on plans of a fee hike for the upcoming batch. “The government has helped institutes to set up such programmes. Therefore government candidates are charged lower than others. However with escalating costs, it would be ideal to narrow down the fee difference between the two categories,” says an IIM official.
Nevertheless, the institutes are happy. “We had a three-year MoU with the Department of Personnel Training (DoPT) wherein it would fully sponsor government personnel to pursue MA in Public Policy at our institute. In March 2009 the MoU ended and both the parties couldn’t renew it immediately. But by the academic year 2010, we hope to renew it again. However, unlike last time when all the candidates were DoPT sponsored, this year onwards we will target potential non-government candidates (around 25 per cent) as well,” says Rajiv Seth, registrar of Teri University. For this, the institute is looking largely at corporates as well as NGOs. At a cumulative fee of Rs 2.5 lakh, the two-year programme offered one-year campus training and one-year of external exposure including overseas trip, on-the-job training and thesis.
Similarly, IIM-A is also believed to be in the process of reviewing its MoU with DoPT for its one-year post-graduate programme in public management and policy (PGP-PMP). The full-time residential programme, which focuses on governance and policy formulation and implementation, will soon end its third batch by March 2010. Unlike Teri University, IIM-A has had participation from both government as well as non-government candidates at almost 50:50 ratio for around 30-40 seats.
Typically, a public management and policy programme runs for a duration of one or two years where the average work experience of selected participants is in the 10-15 year bracket. Average age of participants is around 35-40. The batch consists of both DoPT sponsored candidates and self-sponsored ones. Such programmes focus on governance, policy formulation and public enterprise management. Placement, if offered, is eligible only for non-DoPT sponsored candidates.
Initially started only for training DoPT employees, most institutes have extended or are looking to extend it to others from their upcoming batches and making plans to increase their intake. The pioneer of the two year public management and policy programme, IIM-B, is an example of that. For the 2008-10 batch, the institute had 23 participants in all of which 15 were government sponsored candidates.For the next batch, the institute expects the intake to increase to 35.
“Unlike the PGP programme, we take a limited cachement of specialised people.We take candidates who have sufficient work experience in the public policy and management sector,” says A Damodaran, chairperson of the PGPPMP at IIM-B.
