J. M. Phatak
Transcript of video interview
I am Permanent Secretary of the School Education Department of
the Government of Maharashtra in Mumbai. I was a researcher myself
for a few years, and wrote a book about subsidies in food and drinking
water. In terms of education, we do get a number of research studies
by institutions like NCERT (our National Council of Education, Research
and Training) and NIETA (the National Institute of Educational Training
and Administration). We try to implement some of the conclusions
from this research in our policies on education in Maharashtra.
The importance of basic education has been highlighted by many
researchers, including Professor Amrit Desai and others. At the
national level, we have recently embarked a large-scale programme
where every child from the ages of six to fourteen is to be brought
into schooling. Different types of informal schools have been opened
to ensure that this goal is reached and the Indian constitution
has also been amended to serve this purpose. Some other information,
such as the midday meal programme in Tamil Nadu, is being replicated
in other states in India including Maharashtra.
The first thing which policy-makers could do to increase the use
of research in policy-making is that whenever good papers are available,
policy-makers - at the state level, directors of primary and secondary
education and of institutes such as the State Council of Education,
Research and Training - need to meet together to discuss the conclusions
in the research and how these can be applied to the state government's
policies. Through this process they could reach conclusions which
could be put before the political policy-makers. For any policy
to go through, it will require the approval of the political leaders,
the Ministers, who are not likely to approve a proposal unless it
has first been discussed with the officers.
Secondly, when the officers go on tour, they should discuss with
staff at the lowest levels what the impact of that policy would
be. Through this discussion and perhaps lastly through public seminars
inviting the people affected and stakeholders to participate in
decision-making, different sides of the decision will be known and
it will be possible to push the decision through.
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