Teaching Public Administration
| Date | 01 March 1974 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1974.tb00166.x |
| Published date | 01 March 1974 |
| Author | MAURICE WRIGHT |
Teaching Public Administration
MAURICE
WRIGHT
Dr.
Wright
is
Reader
in
Government
at
the
University
of
Munches.&.
The teaching of public administration has the appearance of
a
growth
industry. There is apparently an insatiable demand
for
teaching in the
subject
as
part of wider courses for professional qualifications in local
government, for national certificates and diplomas, and for
CNAA
degrees.
Very little of this demand is currently met by the universities; most of the
teaching
and
training is provided by polytechnics, technical colleges, and
colleges of further education, But throw in
a
handful
of
universities,
a
couple of staff colleges, and
a
sprinkling of correspondence courses, and
you have
a
recipe for
a
highly fragmented and unco-ordinated teaching
and training effort.
No
central body seems able or willing to get
a
grip
of
all this activity
to
try to
use
the considerable teaching and institutional
resources more rationally.
DES
provides little central guidance; the
RIPA
disclaims responsibility; and the Public Administration Committec, part
of
whose function is ‘to co-ordinate and develop thc work of universities
and colleges
in
the study of public administration’, has so far done very
little. The lack of central guidance is the more serio’us ‘because ‘hundreds
if not thousands’ of professional administrators, specialists and teachers are
teaching public administration full-time, part-time and spare-time. ‘The
quality of much of their teaching is poor and the material often inadequate
and outdated, partly the result of physical and intellectual isolation from
those who teach and write about public administration in the universities
and polytechnics.
This depressing diagnosis of the ills which currently afflict public
administration emerges from
a
bold attempt to survey the education,
training and teaching programmes in the universities, polytechnics and
other institutions concerned with post-experience courses*. The strength
of
Dr.Chapman’s report is that he has mapped a landscape which
few
knew even
in
outline. Much of the detail remains to be filled in: but the
*Richard A.Chapn~an,
Teaching
Public
ridniinistration.
A
Report submitted
to
the
Public
Administration Committee
of
the Joint University Council for Social and Public
Administration,
1973.
Copies, pricr
,&I,
are obtainable from
RIPA,
Hamilton
House,
Mabledon Place, London
WCIH
gBD.
73
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