The role of public policy and management education and training in CEE
/Preliminary information on the establishment of a new Working Group/
During the last decade East-West cooperation in evolving and teaching new public policy and management programs at universities and at other institution of higher education in CEE has taken many forms:
-Developing new public policy and public management programmes at universities based on various models at western institutions.
-Making available and accessible to Eastern partners the Western public administration and policy literature, ranging from research methods to highly theoretical to highly applied approaches.
-Creating curricula and teaching materials to provide the content of programmes based on European and American models.
-Fostering collaborative research programmes, including joint conference papers, articles, edited volumes, and research grants.
-Organizing and sponsoring domestic and overseas internship programmes.
-Developing educational resources and technologies particularly in libraries and including computers.
-Assistance in developing in-service training programmes, seminars, and courses for public sector employees.
-Faculty development activities including language skills, research methods, course development, and research activities.
-Faculty and student exchanges between Eastern and Western partners.
-Training courses for central bankers.
-Professional development for lawyers and other professionals.
-Exchange of policy analysis and proposals in housing, social programmes, and other areas.
This period of East-West cooperation is over. After 1 May 2004 10 countries of CEE will become integral part of the West. With their EU membership their institutionalised position
among the Western institutions will be completed.
From that on their public administration education and training systems have to contribute to the development of public institution capacities which can meet the EU requirements.
Other countries of the CEE region face with serious challenges of modernisation their public administration education and training. Some of them are already scheduled to be members of the EU some of them are still not scheduled but they home chances for membership or chances for strategic partnership on the long run.
It means that strategic cooperation and collaboration is needed among countries in CEE because they have shared objectives in the modernisation of public administration education and training and of their administrative systems. In this new period of cooperation new challenges will arise and new directions will be needed.
More emphasis will be needed on institutionalising successful programmes.
More emphasis should be placed on making new partnerships more equal.
Co-operation programmes must be tailored to particular needs and contexts – one size definitely does not fit all.
Cultural differences must be recognized and dealt with at all stages of programme development
Successful co-operation must be well-prepared, incremental in terms of flexibility with a time schedule and realistic.
Successful co-operation must differentiate between personal goals of participants and organisational goals.
As accession to the EU becomes more important to CEE countries, co-operative partnerships with the U.S. may need to move in different directions.
More emphasis in co-operation programmes must be placed on problem areas and emerging policy issues such as transparency in decision making and anti-corruption efforts.
9. More emphasis on being a member of a Union, which means co-operating
with other members but also with the organisational units at EU-level.
10. More emphasis on representing all Union-members in certain
situations e.g. the Schengen Border.
We are calling participants of the Vilnius conference to come together for exchanging our experiences on these issues.
What the common problems of the development of public administration education and training?
What are the main professional and financial limits?
What are the shared objectives of the development in education and training?
After our discussion having your comments we can decide whether this theme is supported by the participants and me can finalise the program of the Working Group based on your recommendations.