A Plan for Doctoral Program in Public Administration

Abstract

The Graduate School of Public Administration Seoul National University(GSPA/SNU) has produced a total of 683 masters from its establishment in 1961 to 969. In the meantime, the GSPA has taken various measures for the improvement of MPA course such as strengthening of faculty team, enlargement of school library, expansion of research and consulting activities of faculty members, improvement of teaching methods, adoption of forced distribution system in the grading of examinations, adoption of Thesis Submission Qualification Test, continuous innovation in school curricula, gradual in raise required credit hours for MPA, etc. As a consequence of the above efforts, GSPA has been able to select superior college graduates and produce excellent MPA, who are as good us those of advanced countries. This kind of efforts will be continuously undertaken in the public. Most of the evening-class graduates are civil servants on the active list and are going on with their posts after the graduation. In case of daytime-class graduates, a fair number of graduates have decided to work in academic circles while a large part of them have been appointed as gov't officials in accordance with the policy of the school. Some decided to take doctoral course in order to solidify their academic foundations after the graduation of the GSPA. A total of 27 graduates (daytime class 21, evening class-6) have got foreign counties such the U.S. , England, Canada, Australia, and Japan to take doctoral course because we have not had any doctoral course which is comparable with that of advanced countries. Among them, 8 graduates have acquired doctoral degree while most of the are studying for the degree. The above results demonstrates the qualitative superiority of the GSPA graduates. It also means that they could not but go to foreign countries because of the lack of authoritative doctoral course in public administration in Korea, and a large number of graduates who have not been able to get an opportunity of foreign study desire to begin a doctoral course in domestic institutes. It is desired that we cultivate and train a more academic talents and enrich our academic circles by producing the Ph. Ds in Public Administration which are equal or above the level of advanced countries in quality.