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RUSSIA |
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RUSSIA |
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE CONTENTS OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION PROGRAMMES
From 1991 to 1993, a network of regional educational institutions focused on training civil servants was created. Between 1991 and 1995, seventy institutions of higher education were licensed to offer State and Municipal Management programmes.
These programmes are offered as full-time programmes lasting five years and in the form of special professional programmes lasting three to four years. Individuals who already hold a higher education degree in another field may complete the course in two years. Students are admitted through a general competition within the framework of targeted recruitment goals, typically set by the federal administration, for individuals whose work experience in state or municipal bodies exceeds six months. Total student enrollment is guided by the number of places financed by the federal budget. In addition, special contracts with state and municipal management bodies and other organisations are made. Over the last five years, the following trends have emerged:
- the competition for a place of study has increased from 1.7 applicants per student place in 1996 to 2.7 per place of study in 1998. This is largely connected with the increasing need for well trained staff in state and municipal management;
- the number of civil servants pursuing studies through special contracts has increased by 1.3 times from 1996 to 1997;
- the training of targeted experts has increased from thirty five percent in 1995 to fifty percent in 1997.
Over the past three years, the academy’s student quota has increased by 3.7 times to one thousand, seven hundred students, of whom five hundred and sixty are full-time students (of these, seventeen are post-graduate students) and one thousand and eighty are part-time (of these, thirteen are post-graduate students).
Admissions figures for the three-year programme have increased by 1.4 times. In academic year 1996/97, two hundred and forty-seven were enrolled. In academic year 1998/99, three hundred and thirty-five students were enrolled, of whom one hundred and ten were full-time students, two hundred and fourteen were part-time students, and eleven were post-graduate students. This increase has taken place because of the part-time option, which has had a 1.8 times increase in enrollment. Thus, enrollment figures of the full-time programme have decreased by two times. The increasingly large quota for part-time students is a result of the expansion of secondary higher education programmes, which have increased their enrollment from four hundred and fifty in 1995 to one thousand sixty-seven in 1998.
In the last five years, the academy has graduated four classes specialising in State and Municipal Management. Of these seven hundred and nineteen individuals:
- 329 were in the full-time five year programme;
- 188 were in the part-time programme;
- 141 were in the part-time programme of secondary higher education.
The academy has graduated four classes specialising in "Management." Of these four hundred and eighty individuals, fifty-nine were full-time students and the remainder was part-time. The academy has graduated four classes specialising in “Law,” or five hundred and sixty-five individuals.
The academy’s curriculum is composed in accordance to state requirements on the minimum contents and the level of preparation (the third level of the higher professional training). The normative term of the professional educational programme is five years and ends with the qualification of “manager.”
The academy’s curriculum also stipulates requirements for the students’ internships. The course load generally does not exceed fifty-four hours per week. During theoretical training, mandatory lectures take twenty-six to twenty-eight hours per week. General internships take seven to eight weeks per academic year, including no fewer than two weeks in the winter period. These parameters were established according to state requirements.
Specialisations within the programme require one thousand hour, as stipulated by the state. The academic council has established the following PA-related specialisations in addition to State and Municipal Management:
- Administrative-Political Management;
- State Regulation of the Economy;
- Market Securities;
- Public Relations Technologies
- Legal Maintenance of State and Municipal Management;
- Economics and Municipal Property Management.
In pursuing a specialisation, students undertake prescribed course work and prepare abstracts, which represent a kind of academic work on the particular discipline. Students pass a maximum of five examinations per semester. The preparation of the thesis is carried out in twelve weeks as stipulated by state requirements.
According to the curriculum and state educational standards, the faculties of the academy develop programmes, thematic and calendar educational plans, methodological materials for the students (interview questions, credits, examinations, major points of course papers, lists of recommended literature, etc.). The preparation of methodological materials and educational programmes are discussed at faculty board meetings and the educational-methodological commission of the academic board. These programmes take interdisciplinary issues into account.
In the professional educational programmes, according to the particular training is being conducted, numerous optional courses are offered to students in modules. The State and Municipal Management specialisation, for example, offers four optional courses in the block of general humanitarian and social-economic disciplines, two in the block of mathematical and scientific disciplines, four in the block of professional disciplines, and seven in the block of special disciplines. This allows students to strengthen their fundamental professional training.
Training in and use of computer programmes, including those developed by the teachers, is an important part of the educational process. This work is given greater emphasis in the faculties of public-political management, philosophy and culturology, theory and practice of management, mathematics and computer science, psychology and sociology of the state service.
The first course in the curriculum concerned with public administration is the History of Public Administration in Russia class. This course is compulsory for all students. In general, it covers the development of public administration in Russia since the beginning of the ninth century, including: the system of administration in feudal states in the territory of Russia; transition to an absolute monarchy; the evolution of the system of administration in the second half of the nineteenth century; establishing a constitutional monarchy in Russia; the socialist revolution in Russia and the creation of the Soviet republic.
Subsequent courses and their major themes are summarise below:
Municipal Management
In this course, the following questions are considered: concept of municipal management; modern approaches to organising municipal management systems; basic theories of local self-government and their development; municipal management in the Russian Federation; the basic principles and models of municipal authority; planning and organisation of self-government bodies; role of municipal management in complex social-economic development.
Regional Studies
In this course the following topics are addressed: territorial organisation of a society and formation of regional spaces; principles of territorial organisation; historical aspects of regional development; resource potential of region; regional self-consciousness and regionalism; the central management of development of regions; management of region at a level of the subject of federation.
Geopolitics
In the Geopolitics course, the following issues are explored: geopolitics: political practice and ideology; “fundamental" and "applied" geopolitics ("geostrategy"); modern geopolitical world space; evolution of international attitudes from 1500 to 1660; the world from 1815 to the early twentieth century; the twentieth century and formation of the new world geopolitical space; epoch of two great countries (USSR and the United States); the basic types of intergovernmental organisations (IGO); economic and social council of the UN; other universal IGOs; regional, sub-regional geopolitics; NATO as a basis of Western military-political unity; the United States as a political factor; Western Europe as "the centre of force;” EU bodies: the European Council, Ministerial Council, European Commission; Southern Asia; Near and Middle East; Russia as geopolitical space; Russia and neighbouring foreign states.
State and Municipal Management of Foreign Countries
In the State and Municipal Management of Foreign Countries course, students examine the types and features of territories, including the role of state management, government representatives and administrative districts. Additional topics include territorial planning and the basic mechanisms and administrative structures engaged in founding a territory.
Systems of Public Administration
The Systems of Public Administration course is mandatory for all students and deals with the basic theoretical principles of public administration in Russia. The curriculum includes some comparative topics, including: the goals of public administration; organisational principles of public administration (hierarchy versus mobility, specialisation versus integration, territorialisation versus globalisation, bureaucracy versus management); the social adaptation of goals and principles; the structure and organisation of policy processes; specialised topics on Russian regional administration.
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