A Comparison Of MPA Education Between The United States And China

There are four factors creating new demands upon the Chinese post-graduate educational system today to form personnel who will be able to respond to the demands of the current situation, especially in the realm of public and government administration. These four factors are (1) China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO), (2) the development of the market-economy, (3) government administration system reform, and (4) civil servants' current situation. Meanwhile, the traditional model was inappropriate to respond to the aforementioned demands. Hence, there is a need for continuous reform and renovation in post-graduate education. One of the important items in this reform is the adaptation of the more successful American methods of public administration to increase the applicability and professional orientation efforts of public administration students. Due to the aforementioned reasons, China has begun the Masters in Public Administration program (MPA) in 2001 on an experimental basis.The history of MPA began in 1924 at Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, U.S.A. Nowadays, MPA plays a vigorous and important role in American post-graduate education. Since 2001, China has seen several favorable results as well as areas for improvement in this program. The author of this thesis hopes to suggest some useful measures in order to address China's current problems in the MPA program by discussing and analyzing America's more successful experience pertinent to MPA.This thesis is comprised of four parts. The first part introduces MPA's historical development in America and its particular characteristics. This partmainly focuses on 5 main characteristics, namely, (1) the development of practical skills as the highest priority in their educational formation, (2) the experience-oriented enrollment system; (3) the perfected curriculum setting, (4) the effective and flexible teaching methods, and (5) the highly trained faculty. The second part analyzes the background and key problems of Chinese MPA's education. It includes a lack of specialized educational aims, an overly grade-conscious enrolment system, a need for a more flexible curriculum, a shortage of "case-oriented" teaching methods and the dearth of a highly trained faculty. The third part proposes a theoretical framework based on the MPA educational model. It includes the subject matter, the basis of subject, the educational aims, course curriculum and educational methods. The fourth part focuses on probable solutions and countermeasures to address the main problems and areas for reform within Chinese MPA education. This includes 5 areas of improvement, namely (1) adjusting government policies, (2) enhancing creative teaching methods, (3) raising faculty standards, (4) developing pertinent hardware and facilities (5) promoting a more open environment in the educational network.The innovation within this thesis lies within the new approach in facing the lack of research in this field, in order to find out the connection between public administration science and education theory, to establish the theoretical framework of MPA education. The author hopes to motivate professionals both in public administration and educational field to pay more attention to research in MPA education, to form the perfect system of educational theory in the professional degree, to promote the development of postgraduate education.