New Delhi: Serving officers of the IAS, IFS and other premier services will soon be able to pursue PhD from the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA) in Mussoorie, Uttarakhand.
The academy will also offer various other research programmes for civil servants who want to take a study break.
LBSNAA is the premier training institute for civil servants. Newly-recruited officers of all 22 services, including the IAS, IFS, IRS, undergo training at the academy before they join service.
Apart from training the new recruits, the academy also offers programmes for mid-career civil servants and those who want to get a promotion. Serving officers are allowed a study leave of six months to two years if they are interested in pursuing higher education.
Academy’s director Sanjeev Chopra told ThePrint they signed an MoU with IIM-Indore Tuesday and one of the things they look forward from the association is creating research opportunities for civil servants.
“During the study leave, officers will be able to enrol for a PhD programme. There are options for a part-time PhD as well these days. In what time a PhD should be granted will completely depend upon the institute. IIM Indore will work out the modalities of this. This is still at a preliminary stage,” said Chopra.
“Many civil servants want to take a study break to enhance their skills and they come to LBSNAA. We want to be able to provide them with opportunities to pursue research at our institution in association with IIM-Indore,” he added.
“They have the experience of industry and we have the experience of public policy, hence it will be a good opportunity for learning.”
The director also said the academy would look at launching joint programmes that would help administrators and corporates understand each other.
Both institutes to draw up plans soon
Giving details, Chopra said that within a month of the signing of the MoU, both institutes will draw up the procedures and recommend programmes of cooperation to take the process further.
Talking about the academy, IIM-Indore’s director Himanshu Rai said it is an “amazing training ground for civil servants”.
“It also has an immense amount of data, knowledge from the experiences of IAS officers, which needs to be captured, documented and converted into material that can help bureaucrats, corporates and academia alike,” he added.
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