New Delhi: The educational qualifications of IAS officers have seldom been relevant to the roles they perform in the government. It has, for instance, not been unusual for an officer who has studied history to become the governor of the Reserve Bank of India (current RBI governor Shaktikanta Das) or an officer with a PhD in yoga to become the country’s finance secretary (former Gujarat-cadre IAS Hasmukh Adhia, finance secretary in the first Modi government).
In fact, for IAS officers who start their careers from the district level, and learn the nuts and bolts of governance over three decades before they rise to top positions, it is their “on the job” learning that is considered far more valuable than their educational background.
But in the Modi government 3.0, there seems to be a shift. A much higher number of secretaries are now heading ministries related to their educational backgrounds.
In economics and finance-related ministries, for instance, secretaries’ educational qualifications now broadly align with their ministerial roles. Of the six secretaries in the finance ministry, four hold degrees in finance and economics. Finance secretary T.V. Somanathan, who also heads the department of expenditure, has a PhD in economics. Ajay Seth, who helms the department of economic affairs, holds a degree in financial management.
The secretary in the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM), Tuhin K. Pandey, has a Master’s degree in Economics. Vivek Joshi, secretary in the department of financial services, holds a PhD in international economics.
The trend in the finance ministry is not limited to IAS officers. It is for the first time in almost three decades that it is being headed by a minister who has an educational background in economics.
Nirmala Sitharaman, who has been the finance minister since 2019, has an MPhil in economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). The last time the country had a full-time finance minister with an educational background in economics was in 1991-1996, when Manmohan Singh held the charge of the ministry.
Similarly, the two secretaries in the ministry of commerce and industry — Sunil Barthwal and Rajesh Kumar Singh — both have degrees in economics. The secretary for the ministry of statistics, Saurabh Garg, holds a PhD in international economics.
An attempt to increase domain expertise
This is a significant change since even the first Modi government, when top officers in the finance ministry had educational backgrounds ranging from zoology and law, but none in economics.
A similar trend is visible in a few other ministries, too. For instance, the secretary for social justice, Amit Yadav, holds a degree in law. The secretary in the Department of Telecommunications, Neeraj Mittal, holds a PhD in Management Information System. And the secretary for textiles, Rachna Shah, holds a degree in business economics.
Broadly speaking, a majority of the IAS secretaries serving in the government of India — 19 of the 63 analysed — have a background in economics or finance, 17 are engineers, while 12 have degrees in management, including MBA. Some of these are overlapping, for example, an engineering background as well as an MBA.
There are at least eight IAS secretaries who hold a PhD, of whom six have done PhDs in economics.
A senior IAS officer, who requested anonymity, said that over the last few years, there has been a focus on enhancing domain expertise within the government. “Both in terms of your academic training, as well as spending more and more time in the same ministry, there is a focus on ensuring that officials know their domain areas very well.”
In 2018, the Modi government sought to institutionalise lateral entry in the bureaucracy in order to push for domain expertise in governance and policy-making. Since then, the above-quoted official said, there have been attempts to strengthen domain expertise within the government, too.
Qualifications of IAS officers ‘irrelevant’ to policy-making
However, a senior economist formerly associated with the Government of India said the secretary-level data is too tenuous to indicate a significant shift. “These are things that are necessary, but not sufficient. The educational background of joint secretary-level officers matters far more because they are the ones to actually implement policy,” the economist said. “To meaningfully interpret this data, one must see the backgrounds of joint secretaries and above.”
Former finance secretary Arvind Mayaram agreed. “It is far more useful from the perspective of policy-making if after the joint secretary-level, officers are broadly assigned roles in the same sectors be it social, economic, etc.,” he said.
He added: “That allows for domain expertise within the service. But the educational qualifications by themselves are not much of an indicator…Secretary-level officers studied what they studied 30-35 years ago. What they learn on the ground through their tenure is far more important.”
However, while there are some signs of alignment of ministerial allocation and educational qualifications of officers, there still continue to be several officers whose educational backgrounds have little, if nothing, to do with their administrative roles.
For instance, Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla has a degree in botany. The secretary in the chemicals and petrochemicals department has a degree in English Literature. The secretary for the ministry of cooperation is a doctor, while the secretary of the health ministry is an engineer with a diploma in business finance. Similarly, the secretary for the Micro, Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (MSME) is a lawyer, who has also studied public health, while the law and justice secretary has a degree in electronics. The two secretaries in the sports and youth affairs ministry both have degrees in history.
However, the way the IAS and governance system is designed in India makes the educational qualifications of officers irrelevant, several within the system argue. “If everything had to be based on what you study, then why have a system like the IAS at all?” asks Mayaram. “IAS officers are often expected to deviate from theoretical knowledge of a subject or sector, and see what is practically applicable or doable. For that, degrees are not important.”
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
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