US Congressmen question high paying Harvard courses for government officers

US CONGRESSMEN have begun to question whether it’s worth spending millions of dollars for sending government officials to Harvard University under highly expensive training programs. Though no one is questioning the quality of such training programs, what has come under attack is the cost of such courses which is taking a toll on US tax payers, according to a section of US media including abc NEWS.
An one month course, for example, at the Ivy League university costs about $18,000 (over Rs 8 lakh) per employee, which is about twice what the average public university charges for tuition and fees.

Significantly, Indian government too funds officials with minimum nine years of experience in government to undertake courses in 12 foreign universities including Harvard.

Top private companies too send their executives for such courses at that price, and it’s argued that customized executive programs always cost more than the ordinary courses.

In reply to US Congressman’s charges of high cost, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government said, while the Senior Executive Fellows program was its most popular government training program, it also offered government classes on leadership, regulating and economic development ranging from $500 to $1,000 a day, according to a report in abc NEWS.

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Action and Appointments

Union home minister P Chidambaram on Monday listed out the following as one of the MHA’s highlights in his monthly update of the ministry’s performance report.

 a) Offer of appointment was issued to 132 candidates on the basis of their qualifying the Civil Services Examination, 2009.

b) The following appointments were made:

K Vijay Kumar, IPS (TN:75) as DG, CRPF

Vikram Srivastava, IPS (UP:73) as DG, BPRD

RK Mathur, IPS (CH:74) as Director, NPA

NK Tripathi, IPS (MP:74) as Director, NCRB

Anirudh Uppal, IPS (HP:76) as Spl. DG, CRPF