An analysis of the public administration curricula in Turkey: Realities,expectations,and attitudes toward novel courses

Abstract

The public sector gets through a big transformation in many dimensions lately. The volume and extent of this transformation influence institutionalization, organization, and execution of the public sector as a whole, irrespective of either a developed or a developing country case is at stake. There is a growing inclination to capture and direct this transformation in public administration scholarship. However, there is a void concerning whether and how the curricula of public administration are designed to capture and drive this transformation. This paper aims to address this void by analyzing the curricula in a developing country case, namely Turkey. This bidirectional motive of the study is served by evaluating first to analyze the attitudes, expectations, and opinions of public administration academics working and studying in the field of public affairs on several educational issues. Then, we aim to analyze the curricula of some selected public administration departments. After analyzing all the study findings, it is seen that departments in Turkey are mainly framed to represent the traditional dimensions of statehood. No matter how hard are the challenges that the governments face, public administration departments are still stuck to structural, organizational, and legal perspectives. We argue that the public sector needs curious public administrators rather than institutional ones, thus we plea for curricula that reflect meeting this need.

Keywords

Curricula Turkish public administration curious public administrator institutional public administrator innovative courses

Introduction

We live in a dynamic and turbulent world. The volume of transformation that any civilized country undergoes seems exponential when compared to previous terms. As asserted by Sevinc Cubuk et al. (2019) and long argued by Schön (1971) that we are moving from the stable state notion that we were accustomed to a dynamic statehood in both personal and public meaning. Thus, there is an apparent need to govern this transformation by public administrators who are supposed to be educated per se. There are various methods that we could be sure of whether public administrators are well-prepared to manage this dynamism. Among them is the analysis of the public administration curriculum as this paper aims to address.

The main research question of this paper is as follows: Whether and, if so, how public administrators of the future are educated today to face the challenges posed? In reply to this question, we take Turkey as a case study due to its long administrative and statehood tradition that goes back to old Persian and Seljukian traditions, its present position that holds a candidacy to EU membership, and represents a connecting status between the East and the West.

Saylam et al. (2020) argue that we need a plea for new kinds of practical, conceptual, and theoretical perspectives when dealing with the challenges posed by the developments in the field of public administration. This plea particularly includes a growing need to give more room for cases from developing countries (Xue, 2018), a reorganization of PA curricula (Roberts, 2018), and a new administrative doctrine as the curious public administrator (Hatcher, 2019).

Taking all these propositions asserted by Saylam et al. (2020) in one, this paper aims to analyze the PA curricula in Turkish universities. Not taking all the PA departments that is up to 130 departments, we need to set a limitation according to entrance exams for selecting the district administrators. For this very purpose, we have taken the first 16 PA departments that provide the Ministry of Interiors with district administrators as primary selection sources. That is to say, district public administrators are generally and usually are the graduates of these selected 16 universities.

We have, with the help of the studies in literature, analyzed their curricula in terms of six-course dimensions in two main continua as traditional and innovative as:

ICTs and e-government (McQuiston and Manoharan 2020; Strausmann, 2008)

Civil society and governance (Straussman, 2008; van Dijk and Thornhill, 2011 )

Entrepreneurship and management techniques (Ventriss, 1991 ; Wiley and Berry, 2015)

Methodology, decision sciences, and statistics (Blessett et al., 2016; Witesman 2012)

Contemporary issues in administration (Haque et al., 2021; Manoharan et al., 2018; Ventriss, 1991)

Negotiation and communication (Lazenby, 2010; Strausmann, 2008; Ventriss, 1991)

We have also picked two other taxonomies as compulsory and elective concerning the nature of courses.

Employing the term innovative, we refer to the new and novel courses to be placed in the curricula as to be demanded as a result of changes and transformations that have repercussions over the societies. As rightfully asserted by Carrizales (2010) regarding how opportunities and challenges should be met by the public sector in general, schools of public administration should meet challenges, changes, transformations “through innovative approaches and organizational changes that reflect effective service delivery for diverse populations.” Traditional courses, in this study, are those courses that are stable (i.e. law courses, courses about government structures, etc.). By denoting them as traditional does not infer any negativity or inferiority at all but implies institutional reproduction and stability, praising the notion of state. However, being innovative categorically favors the competency of public professionals with curiosity to find alternative and potential solutions other than those instructed or ordered.

After analyzing the study findings, we have seen that PA departments in Turkey are still framed to represent the traditional dimensions of statehood. That is to say that there are 35 compulsory courses represented as traditional, organizational, and structural lectures while there are just 3 compulsory innovative courses in all 16 PA departments. When evaluated the elective courses, we have seen that the ratio is 13/44 as innovative and compulsory, respectively. No matter how hard are the challenges that the government faces, the curricula of Turkish PA/PSPA departments are still stuck to structural, organizational, and legal perspectives that slowly change. However, it is very plausible to argue that we need curious public administrators who are educated in managing the negotiations and conducting smooth communication with all the stakeholders. In addition to framing himself/herself per challenges posed by many developments like network governance, public engagement, and deployment of ICTs in government business, public administrators are supposed to equip with a necessary theoretical and practical education.

By making this type of analysis we aim to contribute to the extant literature twofold: First, there is a growing need to provide more rooms for developing country cases, second, there is a niche in the extant literature concerning analyzing the curricula in light of facing future challenges.

In this study, as outlined in the abstract, we evaluate the curricula of PA departments in the Turkish context as a developing country. The purpose of this exploratory study is, thus, to present and evaluate the curricula of evolving PA discipline in the Turkish context concerning whether and how external dynamics are reflected throughout syllabi of the courses and curricula of the deemed PA programs. This research also focuses on whether PA schools in Turkey could be conceptualized as having programs educating candidates to public service in the form of institutionalized or curious of thinking.

The study includes six sections. In the first section, we present the conceptual background. In section two, we give a detailed literature review on curricula of PA schools and programs with particular importance devoted to whether and how curricula reflect the transformations within and around. In the third section, we give the methodological approach of the study. In the following section, we provide the audience with the findings of the study and their respective discussions. In the final section, we draw a conclusion.

Conceptual background

Before proceeding further, it would be necessary to elaborate on the conceptual background that the main discussion is relied upon. For this very purpose, the study puts forward some conceptualizations on “competency” and “reflexive nature of PA discipline.”

The concept of competencies

As for differences (i.e. cultural, technological, economical, ideological, and perception-based) increase in the societies, there is much room needed for competencies in methods and manners that public sector organizations undertake. As educating the public servants is among the aims of the PA schools and programs, the curricula of these schools reflect the necessary needs to meet these expectations. Though the concept is originally coined for giving a reference to assert the inclusivity of public administration in US context (Lopez-Littleton and Blessett, 2015; Rice, 2007a, 2007b) to enhance its diversity as a good government (Norman-Major and Gooden, 2012), specifically denoting to a missing link between passive and active representation (Bailey, 2010), we widen the term to analyze our developing country case. Therefore, to enhance the inclusivity of the term “cultural competency,” we prefer to use the concept of competencies to denote the acquirement of necessary skills and competencies through curricula to meet the needs of changing societies to serve. Lopez-Littleton and Blessett (2015) argue that since PA schools and programs are responsible for educating and training people for the public profession, they are assumed to augment their curricula to promote the skills of students necessary for gathering these competencies.

We, therefore, denote the difference between being a traditional or curious public administrator aligned with the conceptualization of competencies. If the PA schools pursue traditional and institutional elements through their curricula and fail to reflect the necessary innovative capability to transform the curricula as per changes that societies get through, then students of PA have more likely to represent the institutional values rather than promoting their innovative skills to meet the needs required by the conditions where they are supposed to serve. Since the inclination toward the accreditation standards of PA education has shifted from objective-based to competency-based in the US context (Kapucu, 2017 ), the curricula of the PA schools and programs should comply with this change of inclination.

Reflexive nature of the public administration discipline

The reflexivity of public administration (PA) discipline and reflexive nature of the public administration profession is well asserted through the relevant literature (Cunliffe and Jun, 2005; Şaylan, 2000). If the reflexivity is taken for granted, then it is supposed that relevant developments should have reflections and repercussions on the structures, functions, and organizations of public administration scholarship, including the curricula. Lately, both PA scholarship and relevant public organizations are aware of interior and exterior dynamics (e.g. pandemics, huge transformations in technology, engagement demands from stakeholders regarding policymaking) spurring all the stakeholders toward collaboration, co-creation, and co-production. As Johnston (2015) asserts PAs are inclined to behave as much more sensitive to social demands emerging bottom-up due to the developments in information and communication technologies (ICTs). Some similar reactions are observed in higher education institutions due to pandemics. Freezing traditional methodologies and procedures, or mixing them with massive online methods, universities all around the world have started online education for two or more semesters to keep up with the requirements of the current pandemics, namely COVID-19. The transformative capacity of PA institutions, including higher education institutions, is crucial concerning stakeholder motivations, including employees. Motivations in the public sector are crucial for the actions and discourses of employees (Christensen et al., 2017; Wright, 2001, 2007). Different from those prevailing in the private sector, motivations in the public sector organizations are much more embodied through detailed and prevalent rules and norms, that mainly seem static and are difficult to adapt to the changing factors outside and parameters within. Thus, motivations in the public sector are dependent on the transformative capacity of organizations, which is highly dependent on political decision-makers and administrators. For this very purpose, motivating the stakeholders of public sector organizations and keeping pace with the changes in conditional to the transformative capacity of the public sector, among others.

Regarding the transformation of curricula, we might argue the same as asserted by Hu (2018). Hu (2018) argues that “…the recent rapid growth of information technology (IT) has presented public managers with many new challenges in governance, giving rise to questions about how graduate programs in public affairs, policy, management, and administration are preparing future public managers for information management, use, and technology in a digital era” (p.766). Not only concerning developments in ICTs, the curricula of PA schools and programs should also interiorize other dynamics in providing the students with negotiation capabilities, communication skills, the ability of self-expression, and keeping pace with the theoretical developments. Thus, as time and necessities change, so do the curricula. To monitor and evaluate the change dynamics, we need to look at the curricula of PA schools and programs from time to time. Other than that, as timely asserted by Bertelli et al. (2020: 736), the research over developing countries and scholars from developing countries are underrepresented in prominent scholarly journals. This should be adapted as per the transformations ongoing. (Theoretical) generalizations should be built by being aware of conditional differences present and persistent among societies, institutions, and traditions as timely asserted by Haque et al. (2021) “……without paying much attention to the embedding socio-historical contexts shaping each nation’s administrative system, especially in non-Western developing countries.”

Literature review

The importance of PA education and the relative importance of curricula in PA schools and programs have roots in some discussions shaped around various but interrelated inquiries. One of them is about whether PA is either craft or art or a science. Another one is the linkage between administration and politics and their interrelatedness (Wilson, 1887). Maybe all above them is the questioning about the identity issue (Özer, 2014; Rutgers, 1998; Vigoda, 2003; Waldo 1969, 1972) that PA is argued to suffer from the very beginning. Thus, there are various discussions cumulated under this multi-faceted discussion (Vigoda, 2003). Some argue and also take attraction to the craftsmanship dimension of the public administrators (Rhodes, 2016) while some others direct the notices toward the notion that the PA is an academic discipline and a profession (Manoharan et al., 2020). Accordingly, taking a pedagogical point of view, Knox (2019) asserted that there are two Ecolés concerning the focus of PA education. First of them argues that the PA should keep its identity as a discipline of social sciences that requires to keep its academic credentials and design programs accordingly. The other perspective emphasizes the assumption that PA has a vocational orientation by nature, thus “the purpose of public administration education is to shine a light on the dark arts of government” (p. 108). Raadschelders (2011) asserts PA could be evaluated as science if broadly defined terms are considered. There are various approaches to the PA, not only on theoretical, conceptual, ontological, or epistemological but also on contextual and spatial grounds. For example, as asserted by Bertelli et al. (2020) “Developing nations demand a different scholarly approach in the field of public administration” (p. 735). In any case, PA schools and programs should reflect the changes within and around, including the directions set by the respective governments, as Bertelli et al. (2020) put as “…the goal of any public program….is to fulfill obligations that government has deemed important” (pp. 735–736). In the same venue, in his seminal paper, Wilson (1887) argued that the study of administration would find its course to include itself in the curricula by asserting in the very first page as “…the very fact, therefore, that the eminently practical science of administration is finding its way into college course…” (p. 197).

Given the object and quality of PA knowledge, that is “government in its multiple relationships with society” (Raadschelders, 2011: 918), is determined by various social disciplines, PA scholars should be aware of the reflexive nature of their discipline. For this very nature of the discipline, anything that matters about the governments and their respective stakeholders is of importance concerning PA. Thus, PA scholars, schools, and programs should reflect the changes and transformations through their syllabi and curricula. In his paper, inspired by big questions of the discipline papers, Denhardt (2001) argues that there is a tension, continuing and central indeed, between theory and practice in the PA education, of which the educators of this discipline are very well aware.

When taking a chronological perspective, there has been a continuous change and transformation in the curricula of PA programs. This change is also meaningful when spatial/local or contextual perspectives are considered. Since the nature of administrative science, in broad terms, has a foundation based on continental European traditions but developed mainly by Anglo-Saxon dynamics, we have no aim to discuss the development phases of PA as a scientific discipline and as an academic profession. Instead in this section, we aim to give curricular change when taken chronological, spatial, and contextual dynamics in essence.

Plant (2018: 36–37) argues that, by the early ‘70s, a novel era had been commenced in the field of PA, where “social justice, moral reasoning, greater collaboration between administrators and citizens, and a more critical analysis of the role of the administrative state in society” has preceded over some technical and managerial impetus as efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability. Having roots in the contextual, spatial, and sociological developments of the ‘60s in many countries worldwide have had reflected their dynamics in curricula of PA schools and programs, from moving technical and institutional concerns to engage in societal changes occurring.

Though evaluated from a Ph.D. education perspective in PA, maybe people holding a Ph.D. degree could also be supposed to teach PA courses, the narrative inquiry should be incorporated into the curricula of PA programs as it is asserted by Ospina and Dodge (2005) as “The theoretical orientation and methodological tools of narrative inquiry are relatively absent from the curricula of our doctoral programs. The products of this type of research are not as readily available in many of the prime journals of the field” (p. 153).

Taking a research perspective, Hansen and Tummers (2020) argue that field experiments are getting popular in social sciences, including the discipline of PA, thus there is an imminent need for allocating some rooms for experiments and behavioral PA courses in curricula of PA schools and programs. In a similar vein, Kapucu and Hu (2020) argued that network governance has turned out to form an important research issue, there is little attention to pay for how to integrate “collaborative governance, collaborative leadership, and network governance into Master of Public Administration (MPA) curricula” (p. 2). Lee (2009) states that there are signs that matters related to public relations, which were a part of the PA curriculum in early PA literature, are getting back to the curricula of PA schools and programs. This is, according to the author, mainly because of ICTs, including the wide use of social media tools on a personal basis.

Research methodology

Research questions

Three research questions direct this study:

What is the current appearance of the curricula of eminent Turkish public administration (PA)/ political science and public administration (PSPA) departments?

What is the positioning of the pre-defined dimensions in these curricula?

To what extent do PA/PSPA undergraduate programs give rooms for interdisciplinary issues in their curricula;

What are the attitudes and expectations of PA/PSPA academicians regarding the pre-defined dimensions?

In addressing these questions, we first identified and analyzed the curricula of leading PA/PSPA undergraduate programs of Turkish higher education institutions and evaluated the attitudes and expectations of the PA/PSPA academicians regarding pre-defined issues for courses associated with the PA/PSPA departments.

The Turkish context

It is noteworthy that almost all universities in Turkey have PA departments, situated in either faculty of economics and administrative sciences or faculties of political sciences. The Turkish PA/PSPA education focuses, not at every university but most of them, on higher-level tertiary education including the degrees of undergraduate, master, and doctoral levels. This study focuses on the undergraduate level, excepting doctoral, master, and lower-level tertiary education levels in vocational schools.

There are, in this context, 130 PA/PSPA departments at the undergraduate level in Turkey, irrespective of being a state university or a university that is affiliated with a non-profit foundation as the Constitution does not allow for-profit university establishments just for the time being. There are some discrepancies concerning the names of the PA/PSPA departments, which are not effective in the analysis, departments in Turkey are named either as public administration or as political science and public administration. There is no other department naming, different than those named above, as public policy or public affairs in Turkey. There are 1488 academic personnel, out of which 530 are women and 958 are men, employed in these 130 departments in addition to administrative/support personnel (istatistik.yok.gov.tr). The relative dispersion is as shown in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1.

Gender dispersion of PA academics.

The relative dispersion concerning the titles is as shown in Figure 2. Of 1488 academic personnel in PA/PSPA departments 255 hold the full professor titles, 177 of which are associate professors, 486 people are assistant professors, 34 of them are lecturers and 536 people are research assistants (istatistik.yok.gov.tr).

Figure 2.

Title dispersion of PA academics.

As is previously asserted this study that focuses on whether PA/PSPA education in Turkey fosters curious administrator candidates or keeps continuing to educate institutionalized candidates. This motive is examined by a two-dimensional analysis of PA/PSPA departments, one is to collect the data from PA/PSPA academics about their expectations, attitudes, and opinions regarding issues connected to the pre-determined factors. The PA/PSPA academics are also counseled concerning additional issues about their didactical methods, prospective research/publication methodologies, and their relative viewpoints on students and syllabi overall. As the field research, we have employed a questionnaire via online tools to get the data from PA/PSPA academics. For this very purpose, we have previously informed all the academic personnel in all PA/PSPA departments through e-mails. The other is about analyzing the curricula of some selected departments through pre-determined factors. While defining the pre-determined factors, we have taken care of some indicators as the relative importance of the departments in entrance exams for district administrators, the relative ratios in preference regarding the university entrance exams, the national and institutional reputation among students and academics, etc. In analyzing the curricula of the selected departments, we have used official university websites to get the up-to-date syllabi of courses that were given in the curricula of respective PA/PSPA departments.

Sampling

There are two types of sampling we have used in this research to gather the data to make analysis and evaluations necessary for the paper. The first one is performed on fellow Turkish PA/PSPA scholars to get their expectations and attitudes on curricula of the PA/PSPA departments. The other sampling is about the curricula of the pre-determined group of leading Turkish PA/PSPA departments. First, we present the field research and their findings we have performed on fellow Turkish PA/PSPA participants. Then, we present the examination of the curricula in the following parts.

The universe of the field research is all of the academic personnel, presently comprised of 1488 people, who are eligible to give lectures or are supposed to give lectures after having their Ph.D. degrees. As the universe is defined, the sampling is at least 127 people given the level of confidence is 95% and the sample universe is homogeneous (Saruhan and Özdemirci, 2011: 142–143).

Measurement, validity, and reliability

The questionnaire form that has been employed in the field research has been developed by the very authors of this study. It consists of demographical questions in addition to 18 questions independent of each other. In measurement, we have preferred to use the ratio scale, which has an interval between 0 and 100. For validity and reliability, we have tested the scale in a pilot study on 17 PA/PSPA academics. For validity we have used content validity, thus we have developed the scale by changing questions or adding new dimensions after having preliminary data from the experts in the pilot study. The reliability of the scale used in the pilot study was 0,831, tested through Cronbach’s Alpha.

After testing the validity and reliability of the scale, we have sent the online link of the questionnaire form out to the 1196 PA/PSPA academics through e-mails and social media accounts of the authors. The questionnaire form was active and reachable between the dates of the 23rd^. October–26th^. October 2020 (in the pilot study) and 26th^. October and 30th^. October for the field research data retrieval. As a result, we could gather 133 questionnaires that were eligible for analysis. The questionnaire scale is re-evaluated in terms of reliability and its alpha coefficient was found as 0,816. Also, the alpha coefficient for each item on the scale has been found as higher than 0, 8 (see Table 1).

Table 1.

Results of reliability test.

Items	Scale Mean if Item Deleted	Scale Variance if Item Deleted	Corrected Item-Total Correlation	Squared Multiple Correlation	Cronbach’s Alpha if Item Deleted
1	926,01	48209,886	,332	,586	,827
2	919,41	47623,410	,312	,603	,829
3	903,62	47265,191	,358	,409	,826
4	889,59	46898,061	,452	,393	,821
5	903,14	46242,093	,433	,313	,822
6	911,47	52331,645	–,055	,455	,840
7	902,18	50889,649	,110	,445	,835
8	910,53	46431,251	,414	,308	,823
9	944,16	48872,528	,334	,474	,826
10	930,59	48291,623	,341	,462	,826
11	888,82	44317,194	,592	,593	,812
12	889,39	44761,861	,565	,671	,814
13	902,67	43681,496	,637	,653	,809
14	894,17	44154,614	,640	,620	,810
15	889,76	45032,957	,586	,651	,813
16	898,29	43787,145	,665	,654	,808
17	910,37	49999,795	,292	,296	,828
18	892,03	47501,817	,345	,284	,827

Findings and discussion

After retrieving the data by employing the questionnaire through online means, we have focused first on the dispersion of sampling concerning universities in Turkey. We have observed that there are PA/PSPA academics from 66 PA/PSPA departments. Given that there are 130 PA/PSPA departments in Turkish universities, nearly half of the PA/PSPA departments have been represented by the data collected. When looked at the dispersion of branches presented in Figure 3, it seems that 41,35% of the participants are affiliated with administrative sciences, 29,32% are affiliated with politics & social sciences, 15,79% of the participants belong to the branch of urbanization & environmental issues and 5,26% comes from the branch of legal sciences. The rest 8,27% are affiliated with newly established branches. Traditionally there are four branches in the departments of public administration or political science and public administration as depicted above. Yet there are new branch establishments in some of the departments named under “public policies,” “public finance,” or “gender studies.”

Figure 3.

Dispersion of participants in terms of branches.

One factor of demographics is the dispersion of academic titles. The dispersion of titles depicted in Figure 4 is as such: 36,84% of the participants are assistant professors, 21,8% of them hold the position of full professorships while 20,3% of the participants are associate professors. The rest is dispersed between research assistants and lecturers with a ratio of 19,54%, and 1,52%, respectively.

Figure 4.

Dispersion of participants in terms of academic titles.

We have also evaluated the medium of education in the PA/PSPA departments, shown in Figure 5. Most of the participants (81,95%) state that they give their lectures in Turkish while just 11,27% of the participants say that they educate in English. Only 6,76% of the participants say that they educate in both English and Turkish since some PA/PSPA departments in Turkey can choose a bilingual medium of education, thus they partially give their curriculum in English (30%) while 70% of the curriculum must be given in Turkish.

Figure 5.

Dispersion of the participants in terms of the medium of education.

The following part of the questionnaire is about the attitudes, expectations, and opinions of the participants concerning the curricula, education, and research methodologies. Thus, in this part of the study, the first two questions have focused on narrative inquiry. First, we have asked the opinions of the participants about the percentage of lectures in the curriculum of the respective department that use narrative inquiry as a newly adopted interaction method in lectures. Following this question, we have also asked the participants about the percentage of the narrative inquiry use as a method in lectures that they deliver. The respective ratios are 33,18% for the courses in the departmental curriculum that employ the narrative inquiry, and 39,84% is for the participants arguing for the implementation of narrative inquiry while delivering the lectures. From the answers, we have concluded that narrative inquiry is not much employed in PA/PSPA curricula of Turkish universities for the time being but it has the potentiality to be employed in the coming years when the ratios are at stake.

Another question of the questionnaire is about flipped learning as an interactive education method. We have asked the participants whether and how they employ the flipped learning in their lectures. The answers to this question show that 55,57% of the participants state that they use the flipped learning method in their lectures. This ratio asserts that the flipped learning method is much more widely applied in the Turkish context than that of narrative inquiry.

The following two questions in the questionnaire also focus on the education method of the participants. These two questions are interrelated to each other and we asked the participants that their answers to these questions should be 100% in total. The provision in question 4 reads as “the students should learn just what I teach” and the provision in question 5 reads as “I just guide, students should learn the lectures if they show necessary efforts on their own.” The respective ratios are 45% and 55%. We conclude that the participants think that what they explain in the lectures is important but more important is the active role that the students are supposed to bear.

The following two questions of the questionnaire are about learning and educating methods. The sixth question is about the relative capability of the students in the lecturing process and whether the participants take for granted the intellectual abilities of the students. We have asked the participants whether they pay attention to the capabilities and abilities of the students while lecturing. The participants replied to this question as “yes, we give attention to the educational capabilities and intellectual abilities of the students while lecturing” with a ratio of 69,6%.

In the seventh question, we have asked the participants about the level of information and communication technologies (ICTs) that they employ while lecturing. The returned ratio is 55,84%. As it is seen from the replies, half of the participants actively use ICTs in their lectures, which should be raised given the development and rapid spread of ICTs lately. We asked the participants to disregard the effects of Covid-19 pandemics while answering this question.

Question eight is about the employment of professionals (i.e. district administrators, governors, or public financial experts) in lecturing on a continuous or ad hoc basis. Nearly two-thirds of the participants (67,16%) think that professionals should be employed to give some of the lectures, particularly those lectures that require more practice than theory. However, in the Turkish context, due to some constraints derived from legal and financial regulations and inner restrictions (i.e. presence of supernumerary personnel) the professional people and practitioners could not be widely employed except for some lectures that require a high level of actual knowledge on practice and profession. It should be imperative that the lectures which require technical and practical competencies should be offered by respective professionals indeed as asserted by Scott (2012) “……….These courses were offered by high-ranking practitioners……. The need for the curriculum to reflect the needs of practice was reinforced” (p.29).

The following three questions in the questionnaire focus on the academic nature of the participants’ research. The ninth question asked to the participants aims to define the level of empirical research regarding the PA/PSPA academics. The answers to this question show that 48,69% of the current and previous research seems mostly empirical. The following questions, on the other hand, are about to define the level of experimental elements in the present and prospective research agenda of the participants. The participants asserted that while 15% of present research comprises experimental elements as driven by behavioral public administration, 28,67% of prospective studies could include experimental elements. These results imply that Turkish PA/PSPA academics are mainly inclined to pursue conceptual or descriptive studies rather than pursuing experimental or empirical studies. This is highly effective in educating the students as PA/PSPA academics in Turkey because research pursued could some repercussions while giving lectures. More empirical or experimental research could feed the academics better with more information regarding the field when compared to conceptual or descriptive studies.

The following questions in the questionnaire are about syllabi and curricula of the relative PA/PSPA departments. In this regard, question 12 reads as “given the differentiation between the disciplines of political science and public administration, what would be the ratio of lectures affiliated with administrative sciences?”. The ratio of the answers to this question is 48,83%. Thus nearly half of the participants think that the rate of administrative sciences courses should constitute half of the respective curricula. Given the fact that the dispersion of PA/PSPA academics in Turkey is mostly comprised of academics who are affiliated with politics and social sciences and 75% of the departments in Turkey is named under PSPA, the participants are well aware of the relative importance of administrative sciences courses and their respective rate in the curricula.

The rest of the questions in the questionnaire from question 13 to question 18 is interrelated to each other, rooting in the six pre-determined dimensional factors that this study defines in previous sections. These six questions are about to have the attitudes, expectations, and opinions of the participants on these six dimensions whether there are courses in the curricula that are novel, innovative, constructive on candidate administrators, and having the zeitgeist. We have asked the participants about their relative and respective positions concerning these six types of courses in such a way that answers to any of these questions would reach 100% in each. The six types of courses are divided as a) ICTs and e-government, b) NGOs and governance, c) entrepreneurship and management techniques, d) methodology, decision sciences, and statistics, e) contemporary issues in administration, f) negotiation, and communication.

The relative importance that was given by each participant is shown in Figure 6. From the data presented in Figure 6, we conclude that the participants were divided among the dimensions and there is no much inclination to any of the pre-determined dimensions. Each dimension regarding the courses has relative importance higher than 50%, thus clearly showing that there is no unanimity of high importance regarding any of the dimensions. Yet the participants relatively see the courses about ICTs and e-government, civil society & governance, and contemporary issues in administration as more important than the rest of the dimensions when evaluated from perspectives of constructive and beneficial when educating the candidates for public sector administration.

Figure 6.

Relative importance that participants attribute to pre-determined dimensions (%).

As it is previously noted, we have also analyzed the curricula of some selected PS/PSPA departments as the second motive of this study, mainly for crosscheck purposes after having the positions of the PA academics regarding the curricula. The curricula analysis has two main dimensions. In the first one, we have aimed to define the level of innovative courses besides the traditional courses. In the second one, we have aimed to evaluate in which category these innovative courses fall into, compulsory or elective as shown in Figure 7 and Figure 8. On average, there are 38 compulsory and 57 elective courses in the curricula of the PA/PSPA departments. We have observed that 3 of 38 compulsory courses are innovative whereas 13 courses are innovative in elective course pools.

Figure 7.

Dispersion of innovative courses in the curricula.

Figure 8.

Dispersion of novel courses in terms of pre-determined dimensions.

The rate of innovative and constructive courses, given the zeitgeist and transformations around and within the public administrations, in curricula of Turkish PA/PSPA departments seems unsatisfactory and fall short of the necessities that the administrator candidates are required to have. We have defined various factors effective in this shortage of novel courses. First of all, there is a procedural necessity concerning any change in curricula since any change would have repercussions on the graduation process, particularly compulsory courses. In Pamukkale University, for example, any change regarding elective courses could be made on annual basis at a specific date pre-defined by the institutional academic calendar approved by the University Senate. Yet any change concerning compulsory courses could be made once in a 4-year time, again during a time interval pre-defined by the academic calendar. This could be an explanation of why innovative courses are mostly placed in elective pools.

Another factor might be the homogeneity pressure, which may have an unofficial effect on the curricula. University departments are subject to accept a pre-defined number of students enrolled in other universities both in Turkey and abroad. In processing the transition at the inter-institutional level, it would be easier and a smooth transition if the curricula resemble each other as of credits, contents, and course names. Thus offering any novel course would not be easing this transition and would add additional loads on the students during the transition period.

Another barrier before offering novel and innovative courses might be the negative attitudes of the departmental boards. As the universities in Turkey have their public legal personality, they bear the autonomy when compared to hierarchical institutions affiliated with the central administration. Thus, universities are autonomous local administrations per the Turkish Constitution. For this very reason, institutionalization in universities is designed as decision-making processes to be made through either chairperson or departmental boards. As is known, daily and routine duties have been attributed to the chairperson but important and department-wide issues are supposed to pass through departmental boards, as is the case with offering compulsory or elective courses. Though not required unanimity, any decision through boards could not be anticipated.

The second dimension of the curricula analysis is based on the qualifications of the novel courses. As shown in Figure 8, the dispersion of novel courses is based on the nature of the courses, compulsory or elective. We have seen that some of the courses have presented by the departments as compulsory courses as affiliated under the dimensions of methodology, decision sciences, & statistics, contemporary issues in administration, and ICTs & e-government. The novel course categories under elective courses seem mostly as contemporary issues in administration, civil society & governance, and entrepreneurship & management techniques. Hence it is possible to argue that there is a mismatch between attitudes, expectations, and opinions of PA/PSPA academics who participated in the field research and departmental curricula concerning the relative share and importance of the novel courses.

From all the findings given above, it can be concluded that there is a tension between theory and practice regarding Turkish PA/PSPA education. This tension could be associated with the understanding and designing of the PA/PSPA curricula that have roots in continental European and Anglo-Saxon traditions.

Turkey, as a country, could be evaluated as a follower of continental European traditions. As Üstüner and Yavuz (2018) firmly stated that Turkey, with the proclamation of Republic after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, strictly followed the Western type of state and society formation “with structural models imported from many continental European countries. However, Turkey never totally abandoning the traditional sociocultural characteristics inherited from the Middle East and Ottoman Empire” (p. 820). Since the founders of the Republic adopted the Western type of state and society formation augmented by legal regulations, the government of that time invited many European and American scholars to analyze and report on the current status of state formation, including the universities. In any case, though many counter efforts, it was clear that the formation of the state, in time, fell apart from the original Western samples, including PA/PSPA education. For example, in their joint paper, Onder and Brower (2013) assert that PA education in Turkey is completely different than that of the US. This is very interesting given that many graduate students were primarily sent to Anglo-Saxon countries like the US, Canada, and the UK for acquiring postgraduate degrees. In time, many PA academicians who still work in various PA departments of universities have completed their master’s or doctoral educations either in the US or in the UK as bursaries of either the Turkish government or bursaries of hosting governments as a result of bilateral agreements. Although many bursaries got back to Turkey to be faculty members and have effects overall, the rate of novel courses in curricula is slightly little when compared to other courses which reflect the static nature of the statehood. To note, we have not made retrospective analysis regarding the curricula of selected PA schools, neither have we made a comparative analysis of curricula with past and present cases as they do not constitute the primary concern of this paper. Thus, this could be a potential direction for prospective studies to explore the changes in curricula in retrospect.

On the other hand, any improvement in the teaching skills could have no or slight repercussions in the design of curricula since the presence of mimetic inclinations. It is clear from the analysis of curricula of selected PA/PSPA schools that PA/PSPA departments tend to copy other PA departments when designing the curricula. Given the conditions, it is an instant need that an improved and reflexive curriculum responding to changes and transformations around is at stake in the Turkish context.

Conclusion

After reviewing the sample syllabi of selected Turkish PA programs and the academic context of the PA curricula in light of attitudes, expectations, and opinions of fellow scholars in regarded PA/PSPA schools, we have concluded that the educational set up in the Turkish context is designed to educate students for being institutional administrators rather than stirring them up for being innovative or curious by developing their respective skills.

According to the demographical findings of the study, we have diversity regarding participants, who are from nearly half of the various PA/PSPA schools in Turkey, thus the findings point out the PA/PSPA schools are strongly represented in the study. Of the participants, nearly half of them (%41,35) is from the branch of administrative sciences. Except for the last one-fifth of the participants, the fellow academics in the field research are professors with PhD. Nearly four-fifths of the participants are from Turkish-medium universities.

When evaluated from the expectations and attitudes of the fellow PA/PSPA academicians, we have found that one-third of the PA/PSPA departments have courses employing narrative inquiry as a method in their curricula. Nearly half of the participants state that they use flipped learning as a method while delivering lectures. Thus, half of the participants argue that the students should be in an active position rather than being silent while having lectures. Two-third of the participants state that they give attention to the intellectual competencies of the students while preparing and delivering the lectures. This is a high ratio but is understandable since the higher education policy of Turkey, including entrance exams to PA/PSPA undergraduate departments and respective quotas for students, is not decided unanimously taking all the parties. The students’ quotas are increasing year by year concurrent with the number of newly established schools and departments, decreasing the necessary intellectual competency to pursue a university degree.

Nearly half of the participants use ICTs in delivering lectures, which have been mainstream method (online) due to pandemics ongoing. While two-thirds of the participants are in favor of employing professionals or practitioners for delivering some courses requiring a high level of practice rather than theory, there is some limitation deriving from economical or case-sensitive circumstances. We have found that Turkish PA/PSPA academicians mostly favor conceptual or descriptive studies, rather than those of empirical or experimental studies. This is important since we have a limited number of scholars who are known at the international level and nearly a few people who have been recognized by their fellows abroad. This is of crucial importance in our opinion if to have a voice in prominent journals.

The participants are divided among the importance of novel courses to appear in the curricula, yet fellow participants think more importance should be given on having courses in such dimensions as ICTs and e-government, civil society and governance, and contemporary issues.

Regarding the analysis of curricula in leading PA/PSPA departments, we have found that novel or innovative courses are low but there is an inclination to grow if evaluated from the perspective of findings of field research implemented on fellow academics.

Irrespective of being developed or not, as cited by Bertelli et al. (2020), “the practice of public administration is inextricably intertwined with the implementation of reforms” (p. 736). Therefore, it is clear that PA schools and programs tend to follow and reflect several dynamics, including mandates pointed by the governments and directions set by the reforms among other conditional, spatial or contextual imperatives (i.e. ICTs, disasters, pandemics, etc.). As timely asserted by Nolte et al. (2020), public sector institutions and officials are supposed to “respond to events like economic, environmental, and social crises that most governments are unprepared to address. Civil servants working in an increasingly dynamic environment require leadership skills to manage uncertainties; they need to govern effectively and adapt in times of crisis” (p. 1345).

Nonetheless, as evaluated from an institutional point of view, it is not an easy job to transform or to channel what is institutionalized into new paths. It is not much different when schools, programs, or curricula are questioned, particularly external efforts are at stake. It is because, as asserted by Bertelli et al. (2020), institutions are about to resist once getting used to practicing for some time as”….it also may be too hard, as when processes are embedded within the legalistic administrative culture of a country…”(p. 736).

Although it may not have effects or repercussions on the quality of accreditation for the PA/PSPA programs in Turkey, we have to ask why there is no unified system of PA education in Turkey? It may be because of the absence of an authority regulating or accrediting the field as NASPAA does in the US as have been asserted by Onder and Brewer (2013). There is some effort mainly driven by the Council of Higher Education of Turkey but it is not compulsory and there is no particular accrediting institution recommended. Additionally, there is a separate and financially and administratively autonomous body having a public legal entity of its own that has been established in 2015 called as Turkish Higher Education Quality Council (THEQC). After reorganization in 2017, the THEQC may have the capability to transform the Turkish PA/PSPA education in the direction that this paper concerns. Yet there are some self-efforts in Turkish PA schools like the Political Science and Public Administration department of Middle East Technical University that got accredited by the European Association for Public Administration Accreditation (EAPAA).

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Naci Karkin

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