Panelists:
Naim Rustemi, Director of Kosovo Institute for Public Administration
Valentina Krivtsova, Vice-chair of Odessa Regional Institute of Public Administration, Ukraine
Dea Chkhaidze, Z. Zhvania School of Public Administration,Kutaisi, Georgia
Meeting the needs of ethnically diverse communities, advancing multiethnic democracy calls for new directions in the training and composition of the public service. Good laws are important, but they are not enough. The recruitment, education and training of the public servants who implement and administer these laws are critical. Multi-ethnic democracy requires multi-ethnic practice from the public service. Meeting this challenge begins with the work done by Schools and Institutes of Public Administration. Higher educational and training institutions should strive to recruit and train a diverse community of future public servants who will be ready to face issues related to the multiethnic communities and to find solutions that will promote democratic development of such communities, support their involvement in the decision-making processes and their general, broader civic integration with the rest of the population.
This panel brings together heads and faculty from schools and institutes of public administration who are experienced in dealing with multiethnic issues in the region to discuss strategies for their teaching/training programs, share with experiences, their observations on what works well in such programs and what needs to be avoided.
As the OSCE is a forerunner in promoting good governance and building the capacity of policymakers through teaching and training programs across South and Eastern Europe, we hope on their participation on the Pannel session. The contribution of the OSCE representatives having extremely rich experince of working in diverse and divided societies might be essencial. It would also offer opportunities for networking and possible collaboration to pursue some of the recommendations for introducing and/or strengthening diversity management components into civil service training and public administration education.
Topics will include approaches for recruiting an ethnically diverse body of students to study public administration, teaching and training methods relevant to such body of students, building curriculum and knowledge for effective public administration education that involves the issue of policy design and administration for multi-ethnic societies. How to make more emphasis on civic identity in order to support development and implementation of more effective policy on ethnic minorities, how to secure minorities’ rights in public administration and education, how to improve minorities’ access to the judicial system and participation in decision making process? These are very important issues to be discussed by the session participants.
The panel will be of relevance to all who are interested in the future of public administration education and to anyone concerned about advancing social justice in public affairs.  |