From Practices to Teaching: Challenges and Opportunities of Public Administration in the Arab World

Abstract

This paper examines the challenges facing PA education, considering the colonial heritage of the region. Over the past decade, researchers have paid attention to Public Administration (PA) and its education in the Middle East. Many explored the history of the PA in the region and the quality of PA programs within high education institutes. In the context of the developmental challenges that face the current generation in the region, and under the current political circumstances which have negative consequences on PA, many voices call for a reliable and high-quality PA education and good governance, which includes accountability, transparency, democracy, and other concepts related to bureaucratic machinery within the public institutions. There is therefore a need to examine what governmental institutions, together with academic institutions in the Arab States, are doing to make significant progress in this field. The paper examines the main challenges facing PA education in Arab countries.