Chair:
Taco Brandsen, EAPAA Executive Secretary, Radboud University, The Netherlands
Panelists:
Calin Hintea, Chair of the EAPAA Acreditation Committee, 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 and reinforce the professional values of 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.