The Dream of Public Service Deserves More Than One Chance

Think about what India asks of its most motivated young people. It asks them to study the budget, learn the welfare system, understand the Constitution, know the history of the republic, and think deeply about ethics and public life. They do all of this. Willingly and seriously.

But then, unless they clear one single examination that the vast majority of people fail, the job market treats everything they learned as if it has no value. And yet, lakhs of students join the queue every year. They are not foolish. They are not lazy. They are responding to a very real problem: a government job still means security, respect, and a salary that the private sector rarely offers an arts graduate. Their choice makes complete sense. What doesn't make sense is that we have left them almost no other door to walk through.

The Cost of "Preparing"

Listen to how families talk about this, because the language is very revealing.

The son is not unemployed. He is “preparing”. The daughter has not stepped out of the job market. She is “studying” for the IAS. These are gentle words, and that is exactly the problem, because they quietly hide a very real cost. Three to five years slip by. And while the aspirant is in this waiting period, their classmates are building work experience, internships, practical skills, and professional contacts. These are things that grow in value over a career, and once those years are gone, they are very hard to get back.

The civil services examination draws lakhs of candidates every year for roughly a thousand vacancies. A small fraction makes it through. This is not an argument against the exam. A democracy absolutely needs a serious and fair way to choose its senior officers. The argument is about the 99 out of every 100 who don't clear it, and what the system does, or rather doesn't do, with everything they learned. This is a failure of translation. An aspirant genuinely learns a great deal about the state, the economy, welfare, rights, and governance. But that knowledge is locked inside a high-risk lottery. It counts for something only if you clear the exam. Knowledge never gets turned into skill, and skill never gets turned into a job.

The Degree Problem

A degree is no longer enough on its own, and the evidence is hard to ignore. Educated young people now make up a growing share of those who are out of work. This is especially true for humanities graduates.

Here is the honest problem with most humanities programmes in India today. Political Science teaches the state but not how policy is actually carried out. Sociology teaches inequality but rarely how to design a field survey. Economics teaches models but often leaves students unable to work with real data. Public Administration explains how bureaucracy works but not how to manage a programme on the ground. The answer is not to get rid of the humanities. India needs them more than ever. The answer is to make them practical, to connect theory to the real world of work.

Three Questions Every Good Degree Must Answer

A well-built degree should answer three questions, not just one. What can the student understand? What can the student actually do? And where can the student work if the exam route doesn't pan out? Most degrees in India today only answer the first one. That is the core of the problem.

A Program That Gets It Right

One real experiment is worth more than a long argument. Chitkara University now offers a B.A. in Public Policy and Governance, developed in partnership with ALS IAS, one of India's most well-known civil services mentoring institutions. What makes this programme different is simple: it places civil services preparation inside a proper, credit-bearing university degree, rather than leaving it to separate and informal coaching. The preparation is woven into a full degree in governance, the Constitution, administration, history, society, economics, ethics, and public policy. Exam readiness becomes one outcome of a good education, not a replacement for one.

Crucially, the skills themselves are taught and assessed. A student writing answers every week is learning how to build a clear argument. A student drafting policy notes is learning how to communicate in the language of government. The work is assessed, mentored, and improved through steady practice and feedback, which is the only way real competence is ever built.

The Jobs Go Far Beyond the IAS

Here is a fact that most aspirants and their families don't fully appreciate: the governance economy in India is growing well beyond the IAS. Graduates in public policy and governance today find real opportunities in policy consulting firms, think tanks, development organisations, CSR departments, legislative research bodies, governance technology companies, and public affairs teams.

A graduate who can read a budget, work with data, write a clear report, and hold their own in the field is employable whether or not they ever clear the UPSC. This is where a degree like this earns its value. A student who spends three years learning to think about justice, power, and institutions, and also learning to draft, analyse, and communicate, leaves with two things at once. They are ready to attempt the civil services with real discipline behind them, and they also have skills the wider world of policy, research, and public management actually pays for. The dream stays alive, but the risk shrinks considerably.

A Word of Caution

One honest warning is necessary here, and it applies to any program of this kind. Such a degree must never become coaching dressed up with a respectable label. The promise only holds if three conditions are met: the curriculum must stay academically serious, the practical training must be genuinely practical, and every student must receive proper career guidance beyond the UPSC from the very first year.

The real test is not what the brochure says. It is where the graduates actually end up.

Redesigning Ambition, Not Reducing It

There is a tired old argument in Indian education that you must choose between a liberal education and a useful one. This argument is simply false. The best public policy education is both. It teaches young people to reason about fairness, power, and institutions. And it also teaches them to write, analyse, evaluate, deliver, and communicate. A large democracy is not served by a thin layer of officers at the top alone. It needs a wide base of public-minded professionals who can make institutions actually work.

The real reform is not to lower ambition. It is to redesign it. A young Indian who wants to serve the country should not have to choose between a degree without skills and coaching without a degree. A programme like the B.A. in Public Policy and Governance at Chitkara University shows a sensible middle path, one that keeps the dream of public service alive while removing its all-or-nothing risk.

That is the direction Indian higher education needs to move in the coming decade: from humanities as passive knowledge to humanities as public action. From a certificate that merely proves something to an education that genuinely widens what a young person is free to do.

ABOUT CHITKARA UNIVERSITY

Chitkara University is a UGC-recognised and NAAC A+ accredited private university with campuses in Punjab and Himachal Pradesh, recognised among India's leading institutions by NIRF, QS World University Rankings, and Times Higher Education. It offers Ug  and PG programs across Engineering, Business, Healthcare, Pharmacy, Design, Architecture, Hospitality, and emerging technologies including Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, and Machine Learning.

 The University's academic model integrates internships, live industry projects, and research into core curricula, supported by 2,000+ campus recruiters and 300+ international academic and industry partners. Global Pathway programs, developed in partnership with leading universities in the United States, Australia and Canada, allow students to complete part of their degree abroad. With a focus on innovation, entrepreneurship, and applied learning, Chitkara University prepares graduates for careers in India and internationally.