By Prashant K. Nanda, IANS
New Delhi : National University of Singapore (NUS) is inviting Indian civil servants to teach the ‘growth story’ to other Asian counterparts and in turn learn the best practices in public administration from global experts, all for free.
“Many countries in the world want to know about India’s growth and we wish Indian civil servants to teach the developing countries. We are inviting them to do a course in our institute for free,” said Kenneth Paul Tan, assistant dean of NUS’ Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKYSPP).
“Our institute has a lot of administrators from other Asian countries and Indian civil servants can share their experience with them. We expect to have around 30 such administrators for two of our courses related to public administration,” Tan told IANS.
Tan was in the capital to explore the feasibility of the project with the Indian government. India, with a GDP growth rate of over eight percent per annum, is a promising player in the world economy.
“The course will also help Indian administrators learn better administrative practices from our global faculty comprising teachers from Ivy League colleges like the Harvard University.
“We want to play a role in the growth of India and this educational trip could be a nice way to begin with,” Tan, also a professor at the university, explained.
He said these courses would be fully paid. “The boarding, lodging, the air fare and a stipend will be provided to the civil servants.”
He said if the students want they can also go for a dual degree in public policy making.
“The first year would be at our institute and the second year could be at Colombia University or London School of Economics or the Institut d’ Etudes Politiques de Paris.”
“The aim is to train a new generation of Asian policymakers who would embrace the best practices of both the Eastern and Western models by studying at premier institutes in Asia and the West,” he added.
Currently, the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy has around 240 students of which 24 are Indians but none of them are bureaucrats.
Tan said the two courses on public administration currently have 140 students and the institute expects that from 2009, nearly 20 percent of this number will be Indian administrators.
“We expect civil servants from India to apply for the courses by February 2009 to avail of free seats in the 2009 batch and those who are ready to pay can apply for the coming academic session by May. The course starts in August.
“We are quite sure that administrators from countries like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan will benefit from the experience of their Indian counterparts,” he claimed.