Maxwell School wins multi-million-dollar contract to train senior policy officials in India

Maxwell School wins multi-million-dollar contract to train senior policy officials in IndiaMarch 08, 2007Jill Leonhardtjlleonha@maxwell.syr.edu

The Maxwell School of Syracuse University’s Executive Education Program has been awarded a three-year, multi-million-dollar contract by the Government of India to design and deliver public policy analysis training to senior officers in the elite Indian Administrative Service (IAS). This contract was awarded to Maxwell in partnership with the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB), following a one-year global competition; it is the largest overseas training program in the school’s history and part of Maxwell’s growing international presence.

The first two-month-long training program will begin in April with more than 150 senior Indian civil servants in attendance. At least eight Maxwell faculty members will travel to the Government of India’s premier research and training institute in the foothills of the Himalayas, the Lai Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration in Mussoorie, India, where the training will take place. There, they will work side-by-side with IIMB faculty members to help IAS officers further develop their policy analysis and policy formation skills. During the three-year collaboration, Maxwell and IIMB will work together to develop curriculum and training programs that will then be turned over to the Indian Government to administer.

“This collaboration between Maxwell and the Indian Government is just the latest in a long relationship that began nearly 60 years ago when the third Maxwell dean, Paul Appleby, was invited to India by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to help evaluate and reform the Indian civil service,” says the Maxwell School Dean Mitchel Wallerstein. “Since then, Maxwell has provided training to hundreds of Indian civil servants, primarily here in Syracuse, and we are honored to have been chosen by the Indian Government for this extraordinary opportunity to offer in-country training for those in the Indian civil service who are at the pinnacle of their careers.”

In a particularly unique component of the program, participants will travel to China for two weeks of interaction with Chinese counterparts following their five-week course of study in Mussoorie. They first will visit the China National School of Administration in Beijing and then travel to the China Executive Leadership Academy/Pudong in Shanghai, China. During the Indian officers’ stay in China, they will have an opportunity to study the policymaking and governance practices of another nation, one that — like India itself — is experiencing tremendous growth and a range of resulting administrative challenges.

“At a time when more and more attention around the world is focused on the emergence of India and China as powerful economic forces, the Maxwell School will be in the enviable position of holding a front-row seat in the first-ever discussion and dialogue between government representatives of these two countries,” according to Executive Education Director William Sullivan. “As far as we know, no other American institution is facilitating a connection between India and China in this way.”