Administrative reforms in social sector: Education and public health

Administrative reforms itself is an evaluative concept and not all sorts of changes are administrative reforms. The goals of such reforms? What was the impact of such reforms on the effectiveness and efficiency of the government in social sector particularly in the field of education, and public health? What should be the new directions of administrative reforms to meet the future challenges? These are the questions which would be discussed in this paper. Thus, administration was to be for the people and not vice-versa. Now with the extension of democracy to local level after 73rd and 74th Constitutional amendment Acts of 1992 similar changes were envisaged at the local level also. The 1968 education policy which had sought to relate education more closely to life, improve the quality of education with emphasis on development of science and technology and cultivation of moral social values has, by and large, remain unachieved. The quality of research both in the universities and national laboratories has deteriorated. Universities are busy awarding Ph. D. and other research degrees in the most negligent manner. Unionism provides protection to this lover-middle class segment and thwarts efforts for the achievement of greater efficiency and honesty in administration6. Their unity helps them to maintain overstaffing, inefficiency, delay, corruption, and incompetence in organisation. The 1986 Education Policy document also talks of delinking jobs from degrees but makes no reference to the prevailing patronage which makes competence almost irrelevant. Though now due to liberalization many private hospitals have come up with latest medical equipments and five star hotel facilities for the rich people in private sector.