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MOLDOVA |
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MOLDOVA |
POSITIONING ACADEMIC PROGRAMMES IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN RELATION TO THE DISCIPLINES TO WHICH THEY ARE MOST CLOSELY RELATED
The Academy of Public Administration was established six years ago to cover a gap in the field of training and research in public administration and has the following objectives:
- to provide university, post-graduate and specialised post-graduate training of civil servants for local and central public administration, vocational training and upgrading courses according to current social needs;
- to undertake scientific research in the field of public administration theory and practice;
- to train scientific and teaching staff in the fields of public administration theory and history, state and local public administration management through doctoral programs;
- to draft, in collaboration with the Personnel Policy Directorate of the government of Moldova, the main objectives of personnel policy in the field of administration and the scientific methodology for staff training;
- propagation of knowledge in the field of public administration and of scientific achievements in order to facilitate the resolution of social-economic and cultural challenges and encourage the further development of central and local public administration.
In order to perform these functions, there was a real need to design an unprecedented curricula and research plan. The academy’s top management and faculty, in collaboration with foreign experts and practitioners, succeeded in developing and implementing several training programs in public administration, public management and international relations similar to those offered in the West. Nevertheless, the lack of local expertise, experience and scientific and methodological developments in the field has led to a mixture of approaches, with a basically equal distribution of hours between the disciplines of public administration, economics, management, law and humanities. A brief description of programs offered by the academy follows:
1. Graduate Program in Public Administration
The graduate curriculum for full-time public administration students is intended to last for five years and consists of thirty-four weeks of lectures per academic year, nine examination terms, one term for the diploma thesis, two state examinations, four types of internships and four written papers per year. The curriculum includes six blocks deemed to contribute to the conceptual, theoretical and applied training of students.
The first block includes 582 hours of ten courses focused on public administration history, theory and practice. In order to introduce students to the application of public administration, four types of internships are required:
- cognitive practical work (fourth semester);
- central public administration (sixth semester);
- local public administration (eighth semester);
- promotion practical work (tenth semester).
The block of legal disciplines lasts 898 hours and is designed to give students the relevant juridical expertise needed to perform various functions within the public administration system. The fifth block includes twelve disciplines concerned with economic and managerial issues in public administration. The block of disciplines which deals with humanities and cultural issues includes fourteen subjects, of which thirty-five percent is allocated to modern languages. Some 15% is devoted to computer sciences and information technology within the public administration system.
2. Post-Graduate Full-Time and Part-Time Programs in Public Administration,
Public Management and International Relations
As of academic year 1998/99, the post-graduate course in public administration sets twenty percent of the credit hours aside for practical work, three percent for writing and researching the diploma thesis, and approximately seventy-five percent for classroom training.
The two-year program is divided into four terms, and the three-year training regime into six terms. The course is essentially aimed at training public administration directors and senior staff at the central and local levels. The post-graduate course has three specialisations: public administration, management and international relations. In the full-time program there is a core curriculum which takes up the first term. In the part-time program this takes the first three terms.
Lectures are distributed in the following manner: sixty-five percent dedicated to general training (general courses) and thirty-five percent oriented towards areas of specialisation. The classes are organised into both lectures and seminars.
In the full-time program, the first term is common and consists of four hundred and twenty-eight hours of lecturing. On average, with the exception of modern language teaching (ninety hours), forty-five percent of class time is taken up by lectures and fifty-five percent by seminars.
The teaching of specialisations begins in the second term and occupies approximately twenty percent of the total lecturing time. Only two specialisation courses are offered during the second term, “Central Public Administration” and “Evolution of Administrative Systems in Moldova.”
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