Governance and Public Policy

Government and governance, good governance and e-governance, public policy and its stakeholders, the policy cycle, and how NEP 2020 was made.

Key ideas

Government is the set of institutions that hold authority; governance is the process of making, carrying out and checking public decisions.
Good governance is transparent, accountable, participatory, responsive and follows the rule of law.
E-governance delivers services online, faster and with less paperwork, but it must include people without devices or digital skills.
A public policy is a government’s planned course of action on a public problem, carried out by public institutions and often paid for by taxes.
Stakeholders include citizens, elected representatives, officials, NGOs, the media and companies.
A policy sets the direction, a programme lays out the plan, and a scheme delivers benefits to people.
The National Education Policy 2020 replaced the 1986 policy after wide consultation, with a draft from a committee chaired by Dr K. Kasturirangan.

Policy cycle	identify the problem → prioritise → formulate → adopt → implement → monitor → evaluate
Transparency	decisions and information open to citizens
Accountability	officials answer for their decisions and actions
NEP 2020	approved by the Union Cabinet in July 2020
Not a public policy	a rule made by one school or housing society

Using government and governance as the same word.
Putting implementation before adoption in the policy cycle.
Calling every rule a public policy: it must be made by government for the public.

Put these policy-cycle stages in order: implementation, adoption, formulation.

Working: identifying the problem → prioritising → formulation → adoption → implementation → monitoring → evaluation

Answer: formulation, adoption, implementation