Historicizing Development Discourse and Higher Education Policy in India

Naregal Veena ()
Additional contact information
Naregal Veena: Institute of Economic Growth

A chapter in Issues in Indian Public Policies, 2018, pp 153-166 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Taking its cues from the sub-discipline of development economics, policy discussions have largely been premised on indicators of economic growth, or have proceeded along sectoral lines. Alongside, notwithstanding their centrality to the exercises of nation-building in the Nehruvian era, the ‘soft’ sectors such as education, culture, and labour have remained under-analyzed fields within both policy studies and the social sciences. Conformity with such antecedents, I argue, can only serve to limit the methodological canvas and analytical tools available to delineate and critically evaluate links between processes of marginalization in the contemporary moment on the one hand, and the formulation/analysis of public policy priorities and outcomes, on the other. How indeed may we reorient discussions of public policy beyond their primary allegiance to the terrain of development economics, assumed as a given within state discourse and discussions of policy within civil society? Recognizing that social policy initiatives in the Indian context predate the post-1950s development project, and share a longer history with contestations over colonial reform through efforts to create new codes, institutions, knowledge forms and practices, this paper posits alternative frames of reference drawing on the larger domain of the human sciences to explore aspects of post-1947 social policy, and its over-reliance on human capital theory.

Keywords: Social Policy Positions; Public Policy Priorities; Indian Social Scientists; Human Capital Paradigm; Economic Imaginaries (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:isbchp:978-981-10-7950-4_7

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9789811079504

DOI: 10.1007/978-981-10-7950-4_7

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in India Studies in Business and Economics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().