Taiwan’s Public Policy Education: US-Style?

Abstract

Public administration and public policy education have been studied or compared all over the world. This article explores Taiwan public policy education by examining the public policy course design of bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral programs of school members of the Taiwan Association for Schools of Public Administration and Affairs (TASPAA). This article attempts to explore: 1) the development of public policy education, 2) the curricular design, and 3) US influence on Taiwan public policy education. The research findings show that undergraduate programs pay particular attention to the relationship between public administration and politics, economics, sociology, and law and between public administration and public management. Training in using technical tools and communication skills for policy analysis is in general underprovided. Nevertheless, MPA programs significantly match the NASPAA master’s standards. Management knowledge, applications of policy analysis tools, and institutional factors of public policy are in general sufficiently provided. Doctoral programs emphasize the importance of public policy education since public policy is listed as one of the required courses in almost every doctoral program.