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Chair:
Taco
Brandsen, EAPAA Secretary General, Radboud University, The Netherlands
Panelists:
Calin
Hintea, Chair of EAPAA Accreditation Committee, Babeş-Bolyai
University, Romania
Juraj Nemec,
Member of EAPAA Board, Masaryk University, Czech Republic
Éva Kovács,Corvinus University, Hungary
Bogdana
Neamtu, Babeş-Bolyai University, Romania
Primoz
Pevcin, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
Theme
Accreditation
has become one of the foremost mechanisms for quality control in higher
education. In a process of accreditation, a third party (that is, neither the
programme or institution itself, nor its funder) assesses the quality of an
educational institution or programme on the basis of certain standards. While
it is mostly seen as a technical and rather bureaucratic process, it does
implicitly raise questions about the nature of Public Administration (PA)
education and what constitutes good practice. Although such questions pertain
to all types of programmes, they are especially vexing in fragmented fields
such as PA education, where there is no mainstream understanding of the
discipline. Despite such inherent hurdles, accreditation in PA has existed for
several decades and is expanding globally.
The panel will
bring together representatives from the European Association for Public
Administration Accreditation (EAPAA) and leading programmes in the field of
public administration to discuss how accreditation contributes, or could
contribute, to the professionalisation of public administrators in Europe. For
example, how do the criteria and process of accreditation stimulate
andreinforce the professional valuesof public administrators (e.g.
integrity, objectivity and a commitment to the public interest). Do the
criteria and process of accreditation encourage the development of professional
and managerial skills among public administrators (e.g., professional skills in
using strategic management, performance management, public finance)? To what
extent do the criteria and process encourage alignment with merit-based civil
service organisations?
In discussing
these questions, the panel will highlight and analyse the potential of
accreditation and, more broadly, external quality control in public
administration education. |
