India

The civil services is one of the most coveted professions in India. There are a lot of benefits and perks available to an individual who enters the civil services. Apart from these, he/she enjoys considerable power and authority. But perhaps the best and the most underrated perk is that a civil servant gets an opportunity to pursue higher education in top universities in India and abroad. This article discusses the avenues to study that a person gets after entering the civil services. An officer can take up to two years paid leave to pursue higher education but he/she has to sign an undertaking stating that he/she will not resign from service for three years upon rejoining work. Sometimes the government itself will send officers outside the country to study job-relevant courses. The following are the conditions as under.
1. You should have completed at least nine years in service (six years for officers of the North-East cadre).
2. Your educational break from service cannot last for more than two years.
3. You will not be allowed to resign from service for three years after resuming work.
4. You will get two years paid leave to continue your education.
5. There are some universities that offer courses especially for IAS like Harvard, Princeton, etc.
6. You will of course, have to apply to the government to pursue your education taking a service break. The courses which you apply for will have to be approved by the Central Establishment Board (CEB). It will make the decision on a case-by-case basis and on the recommendations of the concerned cadre-controlling authorities. The courses will be approved only if they are in public interest and of relevance to the government.
7. If you have gone abroad on foreign training earlier can become eligible again after a cooling-off period of five years.
8. As an officer, you should have a clean record in service to be eligible for this study leave. You should not have any pending departmental procedures against your name.
9. You can receive $35000 and $45000 for the first and second years of study respectively for top 30 universities under the Times Higher Education World University ranking.
10. For the top 31-100 ranked universities, you can receive $25000 and $35000 for the first and second years respectively.
11. Funding is given for Post-Graduation, Ph.D. and all regular MBA courses being undertaken by the officers of Group A Services.