New Delhi, April 22, 2024: In a bid to catalyse transformative change in rural India, the Public Policy in Action (PPiA) Praxis Residency Programme has launched its 2024 learner cohort.
The two-year certificate course, launched on April 21, provides an opportunity for learners from diverse academic and professional backgrounds to actively participate in India’s growth story by supporting critical high impact public programmes that can transform the lives of the most marginalised communities in rural India. Once selected, Praxis Learners are equipped with academic frameworks from esteemed global faculty, enabling them to inject fresh perspectives and innovative thinking into the most resource-starved public administrations in the country.
The Praxis Residency Programme aims to cultivate a young cadre of public policy enthusiasts with comprehensive and interdisciplinary adaptive leadership experience, preparing them for careers in government, intergovernmental or non-governmental agencies, public and private think tanks, advocacy groups and CSR divisions. The course will commence on July 1, 2024.
The faculty includes globally renowned policy experts through the programme’s ongoing long-term partnerships with institutions like the T H Chan School of Public Health, John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, Stanford University, etc.
Speaking at the inauguration of the Public Policy in Action Praxis Residency Programme Workshop on April 15, Surendra Nath Tripathi, IAS (Retd), DG, Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA), said, “Our public system has been characterized by an implementation deficit when it comes to public programmes.”
“The Praxis Programmme acknowledges the existence of this implementation deficit and emphasises the importance of deploying young professionals in public systems to address the capacity limitations within our administration's human resources. The Praxis Programme is designed to align with the growing necessity of leveraging science and technology for development in a rapidly changing landscape of public programmes," he said.
Gouri Rajagopal, Course Coordinator, stated that the fresh strategy of deploying young skilled professionals to assist and work closely with public administration for governance and public system delivery improvements traces its origins to the flagship initiative - Aspirational District Fellowship (ADF) launched in 2018 by the Ministry of Home Affairs in collaboration with TATA Trusts, with TRI serving as the implementation partner.
"In the ADF programme, TRI offered young professionals, the ADF fellows, the opportunity to work in the public administration of 35 Left Wing Extremism districts and achieved significant success at the district, state and central levels. The techno-managerial support provided by the fellows helped bridge the HR capacity deficits that disproportionately affects public systems in rural India. The PPiA Praxis Residency Programme, adds on to the support by also integrating a rigorous academic curriculum along with public policy practice.” she said.
The success resulted in the expansion of fellowship offerings, including programmes such as the Health System Transformation Fellowship (HSTF), ADF-Niti Aayog Fellowship and Public Policy in Action Fellowship.
“However, our reflections have led to the identification of a persistent need for an effective state, and solutions should address intersectional vulnerabilities and complexities within public administration, particularly concerning the most marginalised communities,” Rajagopal added.
Anish Kumar, member of Academic Team and Co Lead of Transform Rural India (TRI), shared that the unique PPiA Praxis Residency brings consolidated insights from global Public Policy programmes to develop an India-centric scholar-practitioner programme providing the learner-cohort an applied rigourous academic content with comprehensive blend of foundational perspective, knowledge, practical skills equipping professionals to explore the craft of government and productively engage with needs and issues of fast modernising and aspirational society.
“India in last decade has seen many short-term Fellowship engagement and launch of Public Policy academic opportunity for young professional, the Praxis Residency programme addresses the well accepted gaps of existing public policy programs, fellowships and project-based consultants working with the government at different levels, a unique blend of deeper cross-sectional inter-disciplinary content draws relevant academic content into a thoughtful hands-on applied learning,” he said.
