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Public Administration: The Pragmatic Optional For UPSC
The emergence of a professional Civil Services in India owes itself to the Macaulay Report ; 1853-1854 under the British, and later with Indianization of these services with the impact of numerous reforms commissions in pre & post independent India, the present structure stands.
The nature of exam has been since its existence ‘scholarly’ i.e. a focus on subjective analytical knowledge of the aspirants.
In this scheme the role of optional subjects is pre-eminent, as it not only tests the above abilities but also provides a huge window of opportunities to enhance one’s score and reap an extra edge over other candidates.
All the optional have their own sphere of influence and strengths & witnesses, but Public Administration, stands apart in the fraternity.
STRENGTH OF Public Administration (PA) as an optional:
- Ever since it’s inception in UPSC, Public Administration has been every aspirants dream.
- It has been very successful in terms of number of aspirants opting for it, and also getting selected. There are various reasons for this phenomena. Let’s do a SWOT Analysis of Public Administration i.e.
Strength:
- Crisp and short syllabus.
- More practical, less theoretical.
- Conceptual and easy to visualize.
- Multi-disciplinary.
- Doesn’t require role learning.
- Practical examples, case-studies, make it fun learning.
- Cover almost 25% of GS (General Studies) syllabus.
- Relevant to policy makers and Administrators
Weaknesses:
- Management & Political Science overlapping
- Needs strong & enriched vocabulary.
- Requires Commonsense and widespread study.
- Strong answers writing skills.
- Requires interlink ages of Paper I & Paper II.
Opportunities:
- Promotes a wider learning.
- Helps in practical understanding of Governance.
- Can fetch greater marks in Essay.
- Almost provides a ‘Generalist’ perspectives that is essential to be public servant.
- Develops Analytical & Deliberative skills
Threats:
- Theories can be abstract.
- Answer writing is must.
- Under currents must be developed and understood.
- Reference material needs to be defined.
- Rumours & ill informed advices.
Considering the above, the strength & opportunities of PA outweigh its limitations.
There are (A) strategic concerns of PA as an optional:-
If a student is able to address these issues, it’s obvious that scoring can be very high in this subject. It is a combination of Art & Science, which makes it dynamic.
Reference & Answer Writing:
Though there is no dearth of reference, but the choice of books/material make a huge difference to the marks and expression which is key to good rank.
Almost all the toppers from the subject have emphasized on clarity, precision, simplicity and conceptual understanding.
For Paper-I, major reference can be
- Mohit Bhattacharya ( New Horizons)
- Nicholas Henry
- Prasad & Prasad
- R.K. Arora
- IGNOU BA- Material
For Paper – II
- Arora/Goyal
- Fadia
- 2nd ARC
- Public Institutions in India – Pratap Bhanu Mehta & Devesh Kapoor
- Standard Polity Text Book
- Current Affairs – Polity & Governance issues.
- IIPA Journals
