Introduction to special issue: Curriculum design in public administration education: Challenges and perspectives
| Date | 01 October 2021 |
| Author | Alice Moseley,John Connolly |
| DOI | 10.1177/01447394211034552 |
| Published date | 01 October 2021 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Introduction to special
issue: Curriculum design in
public administration
education: Challenges
and perspectives
This special issue for Teaching Public Administration (TPA) has emerged from a special
joint panel of the Public Policy and Administration Group of the UK Political Studies
Association and the Public Administration Committee (PAC) at the latter’s conference at
Northumbria University in September 2019. The theme of the panel was Curriculum
Design in Public Administration Education: Challenges and Perspectives. We were
pleased to be part of stimulating and insightful conversations about the diversity of
approaches for teaching public administration and to learn from the experiences of the
presenters. The panel discussions led to further conversations about how to teach the
modern student of public administration, especially in the context of the inter-
nationalisation agenda, which affects university and programme strategies the length and
breadth of the UK and beyond. We were also keen to bring together other papers in this
issue that talk to such developments from an international perspective. With this in mind,
we are very pleased that the articles by Kinsella and Waite, and Baracskay, are also part
of this special collection of articles.
We, as guest editors, are very grateful to the Editors of the journal for their support in
helping us bring this edition of TPA together. We all have a shared interested in
exploring, and understanding, how public administration education can continue to be
part of the academic curriculum in the UK and overseas, including how educators can
respond the challenges of the student growth agenda (in terms of international student
recruitment and the associated changes to delivery models and culturally sensitive
content), the need to maximise the employability and graduate attributes within public
administration programmes, and how to open up opportunities for students to be partners
in their education (in a sustained fashion and not in a tokenistic way).
Interestingly, most of the discussions around this special issue topic happened before
the COVID-19 pandemic and, in fact, most of the papers where published online ahead
of print during the pandemic itself. In many senses the pandemic has elucidated just how
important public administration is for the future of the social sciences. The role of public
administrators has been in the spotlight during the pandemic – not just in terms of public
service leadership and the need to be resilient – but also in terms of how to organise the
structures of government at multiple levels to deliver unprecedented initiatives e.g. such
as economic support (e.g. furlough schemes and the ‘levelling up’ agenda) as well as the
Teaching Public Administration
ªThe Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/01447394211034552
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Article
2021, Vol. 39(3) 249 –251
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