Question

At the end of the term each student must submit a research design paper. It should be a self-conscious application of course materials. You should choose a topic of personal interest to you. This paper may build on any of your previous work. In 10-12 pages, your research design paper should include the followings. (1) A sketch of a research project that indicates the previous research to which it is related, the contribution that it will make, the methods of research, the types of data to be examined, the mode of analysis, the nature of conclusions anticipated. This section should be 7-8 pages. (2) An analytic critique of your design, indicating its strengths and weaknesses in solving the research puzzle and contribution and limitation to progress in scientific knowledge of your discipline. This section should be 2-3 pages.

Answer 1

1. 1 Introduction Education is the movement from darkness to light. It aids the transmission of societal civilization. Education in Law enables the citizens learning their rights and duties. Since, the law is an enterprise which rules the people from cradle to the grave, Legal Education is important for every responsible citizen of a free nation. In a democratic country like India, where the rule of law prevails, Legal Education is sine qua non for everyone. Research is an art of scientific investigation and systematic search for pertinent information on a specific topic. Since pursuing research is movement from the known to the unknown, it is actually a voyage of discovery. Here, the researcher presents a report of his said journey. In this research study the researcher examines the national policy on the legal education and investigates the actual practices prevailing at the institutes of legal education in the existing legal frame in India. This report in the form of thesis contains eight chapters. In the first chapter, there is a narration about the background and the rationale of the study, aims and objectives as well as the significance of the study are stated. It contains an outline of the survey of literature made for the purpose of the present study. The chapter also introduces a statement of the research problem and discusses the research design and methodology adopted in the study. The scope of the present study is demarked and finally its organizational structure is outlined at the end.

1. 2 Background of the Study Apart from the traditional function of the state: law, justice and order, a welfare state has a much expanded role ensuring its citizen public utilities like road, power, water supply, etc. along-with the merit goods such as education and health services, those have positive externalities. Most of these services have been traditionally provided through in-house facilities of governments financed and managed directly by them. The Public Private Partnership, on the other hand, is an approach under which services are delivered by the private sector, while the responsibility for providing the service rests with the government. This arrangement requires the government to either enter into „contract‟ with the private partner or pay for the services (reimburse) rendered by the private sector. Despite its status as the world‟s fourth largest (and second fastest growing) economy, India continues to experience significant gaps in the supply of social and economic infrastructure and services including education. Rapidly growing economy, increased industrial activity, burgeoning population pressure and all-round economic and social development have led to greater demand for better quality and coverage of education along-with other infrastructure. As against the various drawbacks of the privatization of the education, a Public Private Partnership in the field of education has a great potential. The Public Private Partnership (PPP, in brief) enables the flow of private funds and resources into public infrastructure and services through the contractual relationship between a public body (the conceding state authority) and a private organization or a company (the concessionaire). The public-private partnership model has emerged as the favoured model of project execution in India, especially in infrastructure, health and education. The developing world‟s experience with privatization of public services, natural monopolies and natural resources has been dismal, and India is no exception. There is increasing evidence to show that privatization of public services has led to the exclusion of the poor and has had severe ramifications on issues in equity and access. In India, at the turn of this century, this was exhibited in the form of public-private partnerships in various sectors including services such as, health, water-supply, public welfare and education. Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) is an effective tool for bringing private sector efficiencies into full play in the process of creating economic and social infrastructure assets as well as for the delivery of quality public services.

1. 3 Rationale of the Study „The Public Private Partnership is a mode of implementing government programs/scheme in partnership with the private sector participation in financing, designing, construction, operation and maintenance of public sector program and projects.‟ The characteristic features of the Public Private Partnership include, cooperative and contractual relationship, sharing of responsibilities, methods of procurement, risk transfer and flexibility of the ownership. Thus, the Public Private Partnership operates at the boundary of the public and private sectors, being neither nationalized nor privatized. Politically the Public Private Partnership represents the third way in which government delivers some public services in conjunction with private sector. Law is one of the most faithful mirrors reflecting the fundamental social, economic and political values, at a particular period. Since, a law is an instrument for social change and economic progress, lawyers and jurist have an added role of social engineers. This requires a generation of astounding lawyers and visionary judges, trained by brilliant academician and awe-inspiring jurist. All these group of people requires virtuous institutes imparting a legal education in an all-encompassing environment of legal system. Legal education is perceived de-facto combination of liberal and professional. However, most of legal education systems across the world have failed in training students for legal profession and producing liberalizing effect in law graduates . There have been several attempts in different time period, to reform the legal education system in India. However, any of such reforming measure has not yield a satisfactory result. Moreover, a fraction of legal education has always remained negligible in the higher education system of India. Students‟ enrollment at UG level is just 0.95% at national level compared to other professional courses i.e. Engineering 16.34 % and Medical Science 2.87 %. Thus, the legal education in India suffers ailment in both quality and quantity. The public expenditure on education by the government in 2012-13 was 4.29 % of GDP, out of which only 0.89 % was been spent for University and Higher Education. Further, with the least fraction of legal education among all branches of higher education, the government share on legal education has always remained meager. This necessitates the exploration of other financial sources, if not to modernize legal education but its maintenance at-least.

1. 4 Aims and Objectives of the Study The present research study is designed to meet the following aims.

1. To ascertain the rationale for the PPP in legal education.

2. To develop a best practice framework to implementing PPP in legal education system of India by looking at International experience.

3. To suggest a Robust legal frame work for restructuring legal education for global India.

Moreover, the purpose of the study is twofold, which are targeted as, (i) Through an extensive literature review, to develop a theoretically grounded model that may enable the evaluation of the suitable PPP model for legal education in India. (ii) Based on empirical results, to develop normative legal policy guidelines for the reform and revitalization of in legal education through the Public Private Partnership model.

In order to fructify the above purposes of the study and attainment of the aforesaid research aims, following objectives are identified to realize the same. ‡ To explore the concept of PPP and the use of PPP in education in education sector. ‡ To assess the scenario of legal education system prevailing in India. ‡ To examine the existing government policy in higher education in general and legal education in particular. ‡ To investigate the suitable PPP model as a tool to reform legal education in India

1. 5 Significance of the Study “The entire future of the legal profession depends on ultimate product of these Law Colleges” Above is an opinion expressed by the Supreme Court of India in Bar Council of India v Bonnie FOI Law College & Ors . while, hearing a matter relating to the affiliation of a law college with the Bar Council of India. The Supreme Court of India has sought to address an issue of enormous contemporary importance: the inspection, recognition and accreditation of law colleges by the Bar Council of India. Through its vide order, the Apex Court noted with concern the diminishing standards of professional legal education provided at various Law Colleges across the country, and, in particular, identified the quality and standard of infrastructure, library and faculty as core areas that need to be redressed, along with the pay and remuneration offered to the faculty members by Law Colleges . Also, the National Knowledge Commission (NKC) in its report submitted to the Prime Minister of India has shown concern about legal education as an important constituent of the professional education. The Report crucially notes that the “…vision of legal education is to provide justice-oriented education essential to the realization of values enshrined in the Constitution of India…” It is further recommended by NKC that the Central and State ministries may be urged to endow chairs on specialized branches of law. State financing can be complemented with endowments from the private sector, including synergistic arrangements such as appropriate public private partnerships. Incentives such as tax holidays for donations above a high minimum threshold by the corporate sector may be considered. Institutions should be given the autonomy to evolve their own innovative methods of financing to maximize infrastructure and resource utilization. The NKC also suggested a governance structure for legal education system so as to infuse the concept of Public Private Partnership in the field of legal education in India. A three member committee has observed from the various suggestion received by it, that, the paramount concern expressed by the legal luminaries is that of lack of funding in an area as important as legal education. The responses have noted that lack of an active culture of financial support for development of legal education in the country has tremendous adverse impact on the infrastructural and research capabilities of the legal education system. In particular, lack of funds has led to underpaid faculties in numerous law colleges across the country and has also acted as a deterrent for many aspiring law teachers from actively pursuing the academic life. The Apex court in State of Maharashtra v Manughai Pragaji Vashi has observed that, “The need for a continuing and well recognized legal education is absolutely essential reckoning the new trends in the world order, to meet the ever growing challenges. The legal education should be able to meet the ever growing demands of the society and should be thoroughly equipped to cater to complexities of the different situations. …….. …..…The area of „deficiency‟ should be located and correctives should be affected with cooperation of competent person before the matter gets beyond control. Needless to say that repeated and competent academics should be taken into confidence and their services availed of, to set right matters.” All of the above observations made either by the judiciary or the commissions indicate the deficiency on the part of existing system and suggest need for the alternate mode of finance and management for the restructuring of legal education system in India. The present study is focused to riposte the concerns raised by these authorities and various other stakeholders regarding the status of legal education in India. The study also aims to suggest most suitable model of public private partnership in the field of education, which have been popularly implemented in different parts of the world, giving rise to a new dimension in the area of the provision of educational services.

1. 6 Nature of the Study A notion of Public Private Partnership itself is multidimensional in character. Being a novel mode of governance, it influences different branches of knowledge and scholarship. Study of PPP across the world has brought new dimensions into the economic theory, management practices, finance structure, raising venture capital, administrative principles, etc. On the other hand, an adoption of PPP in several fields has manifested significant societal changes through the social inclusion of marginalized people, equal opportunity for all, social accountability, equity and justice as well as a just apportionment of resources among citizens. Therefore, the present study though emphasizes on the legal policy, touches various discipline of the knowledge. An innovative model proposed for the Public Private Partnership in the legal education is an outcome of the workable hybridization of various legal policies such as National Education Policy, Policy on Higher Education, National Litigation Policy, PPP policy for infrastructure, state policy regarding the delivery of services, etc. Though the suggestions, recommendations and proposal of model are regarding the legal policies at the state and center, they contain elements of management, finance, economics and administrative theories. Hence, the nature of the present study under the faculty of law is bit interdisciplinary due to its contents and essence.

1. 7 Survey of Literature An actual research study was initiated with the survey of the literature. Since, the whole study is a blend of doctrinal and an empirical, a separate endeavor required for each part of the study. Further a doctrinal part includes two distinctive facets, Public Private Partnership and legal education. Hence, the literatures are explored mainly with two key words, i.e. Public Private Partnership and legal education.

1. 8 Statement of the Research Problem Legal education is quite significant in the democratic country like India, where the rule of law is the driving force of the government. It is sine qua non for the development of rule of law and a sustainable democratic order. The legal education helps in bringing and establishing socio-economic justice among the people. It is true to say that legal education is the heart and the very soul of the society for administering Rule of Law in a democratic country. However, the status of legal education in India is pitiable. Despite of thousands of law colleges and number of National Law School the present system and infrastructure are not adequate to cater the need of the nation. The state has its own limitation regarding the financial resources for the higher education in general and legal education in particular. The Public Private Partnership can be a resort for the betterment of legal education in India, if implemented properly. Public Private Partnership does not mean reduced responsibility and accountability of the government. Under the Public Private Partnership format, the role of the government gets modified as one of the facilitator and enabler, while the private partner plays the role of financer, builder and operator of the service/facility. Public Private Partnership aims to combine the skill, expertise and experience of both the public and private sectors to deliver higher standard of services to citizens. The Public Private Partnership contracts are long term in nature, typically extended over a 15-30 year period. This helps to establish productive and lasting relation between the public and private sectors, but at the same time, it needs an assessment of strengths and weakness of such relationship. The structure of Public Private Partnership, which may be drawn up through a single contract cannot be applied to „one jacket fits to all‟ formula, hence, there has to be a tailor made legal instrument with flexibility either to neglect or override the prevailing legal framework of the country. Despite the growing interest and adoption of Public Private Partnership in various fields except education, they have been facing criticism from civil society, organizations, public interest groups, media and other stakeholders. Some have raised concern about the role of the private sector in public services. These need to be addressed through the proper research so that Public Private Partnership model can be implemented successfully in the field of education, especially legal education.

1. 8. 1 Research Questions The aforesaid discussion leads to following set of questions ought to be addressed as a prerequisite for this study. (i) What are various types of PPP models in the education sector, across the world ? (ii) How PPP has influenced education in performance, governance, efficiency and the quality of an outcome ? (iii) Examination of the government policy on higher education and legal education in particular.(iv) What is an assessment about the present status of legal education Institutes in India ? (v) What are the legal impediments, socio-political constraints and organizational hurdles in the process of reform in legal education in India ? (vi) Identification of the most suitable PPP model in education which may be adopted for the restructuring of legal education in India.

1. 8. 2 Propositions of the Study Followings are the propositions made before the present study. † PPP has performed well and yield better outcome in the primary education in India. † A status of legal education in India is deplorable and requires rejuvenate. † The present policy has futile in maintaining standards of legal education. These set of propositions lead to the formulation of a hypothesis for the study.

1. 8. 3 Hypothesis Hypothesis is a proposition, condition or principle which is assumed, perhaps without belief, in order to draw out its logical consequences and by this method to test its accord with facts which are known or may be defined.Hypothesis provides direction to research. It directs a researcher to identify the procedure and methods to be followed in solving the problem. The hypothesis is forward looking. It may either be a statement of relationship or specification of functions. The formulation of the hypothesis requires a prior knowledge of the phenomenon. Hence, in connection with the research questions and propositions stated in the earlier sub-section, the hypothesis of the study is formulated as, “The government policy on legal education is not sufficient for the implementation of Public Private Partnership in legal education.” At the initial stage, a hypothesis is in the nature of a guess, a hunch, an imagination or an assumption. It is only when the study is carried out and the information and data are analysed and evaluated that the researcher will know whether the hypothesis has been accepted or rejected. Since, a hypothesis is a tentative statement which expresses the nature of relationship between two or more variables usually in the form of cause-effect relationship and there are several such parameters in the present study, the subhypotheses are formed. In a present study a data collected from an empirical study is classified according to profession and institutional affiliation of stakeholders. Also, the assessment of legal educational institutes is quantified on the basis of nine critical parameters. Therefore, class wise two sub-hypothesis have been formulated for each of these parameters and individually tested through the statistical analysis. Thereafter on the basis of the inference derived from the results of sub-hypothesis tests, a collective corollary interpretation is made about the main hypothesis. Since, a hypothesis is an assertion of a casual association between two properties; and a legal research does not necessarily deal with relationship between two or more variables. Hence, unlike a social research any of such relationships in legal research, may be tested with the help of hypotheses formulated in the form of definite and testable statements. However, a specific statement in question forms an essential component of legal research, which often take place of hypothesis.

1. 9 Research Design and Methodology Epistemology is a theory of knowledge, without considering which, a researcher can theorize about what he thinks he has established but would have difficulty in demonstrating the validity of his claims. A research can be defined as a set of activities for an advancement of knowledge. In order to justify the truth to be believed as knowledge, a sound research should be designed in such a way through constant reasoning. While setting up a research it is quite essential to determine the research paradigm, i.e. the researcher‟s view to examine the reality . These epistemology and research paradigm assist in deciding the research methodology. Research methodology is a way to systematically solve the research problem. It is a science of studying how research is done. Quite often methodology and methods are treated as synonyms. Nevertheless, the methodology is broader and envelops method. Research methodology includes the study of the various steps adopted by the researcher while studying his research problem along-with the logic behind them. Hence, it requires understanding about the socio-organizational context, philosophical assumptions, ethical principles and political issues connected with the research problem. On the other hand, method are set of specific techniques for selecting cases or sample, data collection or observation, refining and analyzing data and reporting the outcome of research.

1. 9. 1 Research approach The present research study is a blend of doctrinal and empirical in nature. Hence, mixed research method is been adopted. The doctrinal preposition of the study is made by a systematic approach to examine the options developed in the selected research method. Due to the complex nature of the problem, a multiple approach was taken to address the problem from different angle. Each of the ancillary questions of research problem is approached separately through the appropriate research method. Since, three of the research question are based on doctrinal study, an appropriate research method of literature survey and documentary analysis where used to formulate for the modeling of PPP in education. While for fourth and fifth questions, an empirical study is made. The empirical research relies on experience or observation, without due regard for system and theory. It is a data based research, coming up with conclusions which are capable of being verified by observation or experiment. In such a research, it is necessary to get facts firsthand, at their source and actively to go about doing certain things to stimulate the production of desired information. Further, the approach for this empirical research may either be quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative research is based on the quantitative measurements of some characteristics, which can be expressed in terms of quantities. On the other hand a qualitative research is concerned with the qualitative phenomenon that relates or involves quality or the kind of variables of the study. These approaches differ in analysis and reporting also. A qualitative data are explained in a descriptive manner, which include the results of surveys or the fact-finding enquiries of various kinds. The purpose of this approach is to provide merely the description of the state of affairs as it exists at the time investigation. While quantitative data are reported through the statistical analysis for the critical evaluation of the fact prevailing in the universe. The researcher, first provide himself with a working hypothesis or guess as to the problem results and then works to get enough data (facts) to accept or reject his hypothesis. Wherever, a proof is sough that certain variables affect other variables in some way, the empirical research is most appropriate. Evidences gathered through the empirical studies are considered to be most powerful support possible for testing a given hypothesis. The empirical research in the present study involved both descriptive and analytical approach through the qualitative and quantitative data.

1. 9. 2 Research Design It is perceived that the research problem of the present study ontologically belongs to nominalism reality. Nonetheless, the method employed to solve the problem was based on objectivist epistemology. Hence both positivism and interpretivism approaches are considered. This kind of combination is called pragmatic paradigm, which utilizes the mixture of qualitative and quantitative technique. Such a mixed method studies are popularly known as triangulation14 . A triangulation method is defined as the use of multiple methods mainly qualitative and quantitative methods in studying the same phenomenon for the purpose of increasing study credibility . This implies that triangulation is the combination of two or more methodological approaches, theoretical perspectives, data sources, investigators and analysis methods to study the same phenomenon. Further, there are several classifications for triangulation, viz. the one includes; methodological triangulation, investigator triangulation, theoretical triangulation, analysis triangulation and data triangulation. While the other classification is based on the strategy regarding steps of research method, i.e. sequential explanatory strategy, sequential exploratory strategy,sequential transformative strategy, Concurrent triangulation strategy, Concurrent nested strategy and Concurrent transformative strategy.