Quality Assurance in Bachelor and Master Programmes in Public Administration. A Comparative Study

Abstract

The master programmes in the field of public administration reveal two trends, and in spite of being contradictory they ensur e both the convergence and specificity imposed by the continental/national realities:•A thematic focus on public management (MPM), public policies (MPP) or public affairs (MPA);•A diversification of the content and didactic methodologies related to the traditions and national public developments.The preoccupations on enhancing the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) are more visible in the context of applying thoroughly the principles of Bologna Declaration. The recent EHEA Ministerial Conference and the Third Bologna Policy Forum in Bucharest have highlighted that EHEA”is constructed on the basis of common European principles and on the growing internationalisation of higher education” and”HEIs welcome the opportunity for evaluation, accreditation or audit that incorporate their diverse activities and have an international added value”. EHEA countries’ focus on promoting Quality Assurance (QA) in higher education has been expressed in institutional building and promotion of contents and practicescompatible at European level. The need for programme internationalization is also supported by QA transnational organizations as well as several projects aimed at joint programmes. In this context, the current paper aims to present, in a comparative approach, the modalities and good practices derived from external QA evaluations for the quality of programmes in the field of public administration, accomplished by the Romanian Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ARACIS) and the European Association for Public Administration Accreditation (EAPAA) for bachelor and master programmes in the National School of Political Studies and Public Administration in Bucharest, Romania. The general research framework will be structured according to the priorities of the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) and will be based on the self-evaluation reports as well as the reports of external evaluation, accomplished recently by ARACIS and EAPAA experts.