Abstract
This study presents a reflective analysis of a three-year curriculum renewal process in the Programme for Governance and Political Transformation at a mid-sized South African University. Through the systematic application of Gibb’s Reflective Cycle (1998) this research explores how sustained engagement with governance practitioners and stakeholders can inform curriculum development in Public Governance education. The study employs a pragmatic ontology and qualitative methodology, utilising narrative analysis to examine the collaborative involvement of practitioners, stakeholders, and peers in curriculum development. Drawing on insights from annual #integritasza conferences (2020–2023), the research documents how multistakeholder engagement enhanced curriculum relevance and real-world applicability. This article examines the theoretical foundations of Public Governance, reviews contemporary governance paradigms including New Public Management, New Public Governance, and public value frameworks. This research contributes to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) by demonstrating how systematic reflection on stakeholder-engaged processes can enhance Public Governance education.
Keywords
Introduction
The landscape of public governance continues to evolve. This demands educational approaches that transcend conventional academic boundaries and prepare learners for the complexities of modern public sector challenges. Public Governance, in the context of this study is understood as the interdisciplinary practice and study of how public institutions, communities, business, and other actors, collaboratively make and implement decisions to achieve public value (Thabit & Mora, 2024). This emphasises accountability, participation, inclusivity, ethical reasoning, and responsiveness in both formal and informal governance systems. In the African context, this extends to navigating and integrating traditional and modern systems, recognising community knowledge, and addressing postcolonial and socio-economic challenges.
Traditional curriculum development models, while structured and systematic, may not adequately address the dynamic nature of contemporary governance issues, especially in the context of developing countries. Educational systems around the world have undergone significant transformations since the 1980s due to the changing role of government brought about by the New Public Management paradigm. New Public Management (NPM) emerged in the 1980s as a reform movement that sought to make the public sector more businesslike by introducing private sector management practices, emphasising efficiency, performance measurement, and market-based approaches to service delivery (Hood, 1991). This paradigm shift fundamentally transformed how governments operated and, consequently, how public sector professionals needed to be trained. Therefore, there is a recognition that education in governance must mirror the collaborative and adaptive nature of the governance processes it seeks to teach.
This study examines the development and implementation of a more flexible, stakeholder engaged approach to curriculum renewal in public governance education. The research emerges from a three-year reflective process of curriculum development within a Public Governance programme at a South African university. Rather than following an established curriculum renewal process, the approach was guided by an instinctive methodology informed by academic considerations and multi-stakeholder engagement with public governance practitioners and industry leaders through the annual #integritasza 1 conference series, held in Wellington, South Africa. Through systematic application of Gibb’s Reflective Cycle to this experience, a theoretical framework termed “Dynamic Learning Ecosystems in Public Governance Teaching” emerged which offers insights into how curriculum renewal in professional disciplines can be enhanced through interactive stakeholder-engaged processes.
Literature Review and Theoretical Foundations
Gibb’s Reflective Cycle: A framework for Learning from Experience
Gibb’s Reflective Cycle, developed by Graham Gibbs (1988), provides a structured framework for learning from experience through six interconnected stages: description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion and action plan. This cyclical model encourages practitioners to systematically examine their experiences, understand their emotional responses, evaluate outcomes, analyse contributing factors, draw meaningful conclusions, and develop concrete action plans for future practice. The model has been widely adopted across professional disciplines as a tool for continuous professional development and organisational learning. Its strength lies in acknowledging the importance of emotional responses in learning processes while maintaining systematic rigor in reflection (Bulman & Schutz, 2013). The framework’s applicability to curriculum development makes it valuable for understanding and documenting educational innovation processes.
Conceptualising Public Governance in Contemporary Contexts
The conceptualisation of public governance as both an academic discipline and professional practice has evolved over recent decades. Contemporary scholarship has moved beyond government-centric models where the content mostly referred back to Public Administration and New Public Administration, to embrace collaborative, multi-stakeholder approaches that recognise the interdependence of public, private, and civil society actors in addressing complex societal challenges such as climate change, inequality, public health crises, and digital transformation (Head & Alford, 2015; Osborne, 2006; Pierre & Peters, 2020). Bevir (2012) characterises this evolution as a shift from hierarchical control to network steering, where governance is understood as the process through which diverse actors coordinate their actions to produce public value. This reconceptualization also has significant implications for curriculum development in Public Governance education, requiring pedagogical approaches that prepare students not only for hierarchical bureaucratic roles but for collaborative and adaptive leadership positions within dynamic governance networks.
At its most comprehensive, governance refers to “regimes of laws, administrative rules, judicial rulings, and practices that constrain, prescribe, and enable government activity, where such activity is broadly defined as the production and delivery of public supported services” (Filgueiras et al., 2023). While government refers to the institutions of state, Public Governance encompasses the broader processes and relationships through which decisions are made, contested, and implemented. This expanded understanding recognises that Public Governance encompasses the entire range of institutions, actors, and relationships involved in steering society toward collective goals. This evolved understanding of Public Governance extends well beyond formal government machinery to include diverse stakeholders across public, private, and civil society sectors (Katsamunska, 2016). Understanding Public Governance in African contexts also requires particular attention to institutional diversity, where formal state structures coexist with traditional authorities, customary law systems, and community-based governance mechanisms (Motadi & Sikhwari, 2024). This complexity necessitates approaches that honour both indigenous knowledge systems and contemporary democratic institutions while addressing persistent postcolonial challenges in institutional design and knowledge production (Khisa, 2022).
A notable tension exists between the theoretical evolution of public governance and its curricular expression in higher education. Qualifications carrying “Governance” or “Public Governance” in their titles frequently retain Public Administration and Political Science as their primary disciplines, with the governance dimension remaining conceptually underdeveloped. The expanded understanding of public governance – encompassing multi-actor collaboration, network steering, and public value creation – has not yet translated proportionally into disciplinary differentiation at the curricular level. This gap reflects a broader conceptual delay – the academic infrastructure of many programmes has not yet caught up with the theoretical evolution of Public Governance as a field. It is therefore important to consider what curricular differentiation is required if Public Governance education is to honour the expanded, collaborative, and multi-actor understanding of governance that contemporary scholarship demands.
Theoretical Evolution: Converging and Competing Paradigms
Recent decades have witnessed the emergence of competing theoretical frameworks attempting to capture transformation in public administration and public management. Rather than representing discrete historical stages, these frameworks – New Public Management (NPM), the Neo-Weberian State (NWS), and New Public Governance (NPG) – often coexist within the same jurisdictions. Filgueiras et al. (2023) characterise these as “governance styles” that combine elements across paradigms depending on political dynamics, institutional legacies, and problem domains. This recognition of the complexity of paradigms challenges linear narratives of administrative reform while highlighting the importance of understanding how different governance logics interact in practice.
The NPG framework has gained particular traction as scholars seek to understand collaborative approaches to public problem-solving. However, Krogh and Triantafillou (2024) observe that NPG’s conceptual development has predominantly focused on external relations – partnerships between government and non-governmental actors – while neglecting internal collaborative dynamics within the public sector itself. Their response is to specify eight structural and procedural reform tools for advancing intra-governance collaboration. This exemplifies how theoretical frameworks evolve through constant refinement in addressing identified gaps. These tools range from creating integrative units, to implementing collaborative leadership development. Each is designed to overcome organisational silos that impede coordinated action.
Yet paradigm development involves more than identifying structural mechanisms; it requires grappling with fundamental questions about purpose and value. Here, the work of Thabit and Mora (2024) prove significant in bridging a seemingly persistent conceptual divide. Moore’s (1995) strategic public value framework emphasises managerial agency and strategic action by public leaders seeking to create public value, while Bozeman’s (2007) public values approach focuses on normative standards determined by society. These perspectives do complement each other but have operated largely in parallel. Thabit and Mora’s systematic integration of both traditions through their Strategic Public Value Governance framework offers a more complete account by recognising both the agency of public managers in identifying opportunities for value creation, and the importance of diverse public values as assessment criteria for evaluating governance outcomes.
Collaborative Governance: Processes, Structures, and Paradoxes
Understanding how collaboration functions in governance contexts requires attention to both structural arrangements and interactive processes. The distinction drawn by Wang and Ran (2021) between network governance and collaborative governance explains this duality. Network governance emphasises structural configurations which are the patterns of relationships among organisations, the formal agreements defining roles and responsibilities, and the institutional frameworks enabling coordination. Collaborative governance, conversely, puts forward scopes for processes where role-players build trust over time, how they negotiate shared understandings despite different organisational cultures, and how they sustain commitment when quick wins prove elusive. Both perspectives capture important aspects of collaborative dynamics, yet they imply different skill requirements for practitioners as well as various intervention points for improving collaboration.
Emerson et al.’s (2011) integrated framework attempts to bridge structural and perspectives on process by identifying how interaction between system, collaboration and impact, can be dynamic. Favourable contextual conditions (adequate resources, supportive legal frameworks, political backing etc.) create enabling environments but cannot guarantee successful collaboration. Effective process management (principled engagement, inclusiveness, development of shared interests, building capacity for collaboration etc.) proves to be as essential as contextual conditions. However, systemic conditions can actively impede collaboration even when skilful process management is evident. The framework therefore highlights both the agency of collaborative leaders in shaping outcomes as well as the structural constraints within which they might operate.
This tension between agency and structure becomes critical when we consider power dynamics in collaborative settings. While NPG and public value frameworks often emphasise the benefit of collaboration, scholars progressively recognise the possible risks. According to Steen et al. (2018), co-creation and co-production can serve as mechanisms for transferring responsibilities from resourced public agencies to under-resourced communities and civil society organisations. The realities on grass-roots level in South Africa is a stellar example of this phenomenon (Ragolane & Khoza, 2024). In the absence of effective public governance, communities and organisations are stepping in to perform certain public maintenance, security, and social services which are beyond their scope of establishment, expertise, and resources. Participation processes may also provide legitimacy cover for predetermined decisions rather than genuinely influencing outcomes. The risk is that existing power imbalances can be reinforced when dominant actors control the agenda, resources and, importantly, outcome evaluation, while they are not the ones providing the services (Steen et al., 2018).
Teaching Public Governance
The reviewed literature highlights that the conceptual and theoretical evolution of Public Governance reflects a significant transformation in how scholars and practitioners understand the organisation of collective decision-making in society. This theoretical richness has however exposed a persistent fragmentation in both scholarship and professional practice. The coexistence of multiple paradigms illustrates that this field is in continuous reconfiguration rather than a fixed transition (Filgueiras et al., 2023).
This fragmentation has implications for how Public Governance higher education. If Public Governance is to equip future public professionals to navigate complex governance environments, it cannot be treated as a residual sub-field appended to Public Administration or Political Science. It requires a distinct curricular identity which positions governance as an integrating framework capable of drawing on Political Science, Public Administration, Sociology, and other fields while maintaining its own normative and analytical centre. This is consistent with what Osborne, Krogh, Triantfillou, and others are advancing: not a rupture from existing disciplines, but a reorientation away from government-centrism towards citizen-centric, collaborative logic that characterises contemporary governance in practice. In the African context, this disciplinary coherence is even more necessary, as the institutional hybridity of governance on the continent demands theoretical grounding that no single traditional discipline adequately provides (Khisa, 2022). Understanding and navigating this hybridity demands theoretical grounding that honours indigenous knowledge systems while also engaging global debates about accountability, participation, and ethical leadership (Motadi & Sikhwari, 2024).
Furthermore, the integration of frameworks such as Thabit and Mora’s (2024) Strategic Public Value Governance underscores the need for a discipline that bridges theory and practice through critical reflection. Public Governance education should cultivate graduates who not only understand diverse governance paradigms but can also apply them sensibly in contexts of uncertainty and constraint. It calls for an innovative learning framework designed to develop learning environments/a curricula that is fit for purpose to achieve this. This main aim of the application of this framework must be to emphasise pedagogical environments that link theoretical knowledge, ethical reasoning, and real-world problem solving in public contexts.
The literature therefore establishes both the intellectual foundation and the practical urgency for developing Public Governance as a distinct field of academic inquiry and teaching. Its disciplinary development is important not only for conceptual coherence but also for training future leaders capable of advancing accountable, inclusive, and contextually relevant governance in South Africa and the Global South. According to Fung (2017), higher education institutions are uniquely positioned to contribute to sustainable development through education, research, community engagement, and policy influence. Stakeholder engagement is recognised as an important strategy for fostering a more innovative approach towards this goal. As identified in the literature (and emphasised earlier in this contribution), a persistent misalignment exists between the theoretical development of Public Governance and its curricular representation in higher education. This programme was no exception. Critical reflection on the curriculum revealed the absence of a dedicated module at undergraduate level in which the conceptual and theoretical foundations of Public Governance, as a field distinct from but drawing on Public Administration, Political Science etc., could be systematically developed. As far as I am aware, no such modules existed in South African curriculums of this nature in higher education. Therefore, I have embarked on developing new undergraduate modules for the Bachelor of Arts focusing on Public Governance, as well as a renewal of the Postgraduate Diploma. Processes to change the titles of these qualifications to reflect Public Governance, is planned as well.
The following section of this paper explains this process through applying Gibb’s Reflective Cycle (1988) retrospectively. The motivation for this reflection is not only towards personal development and growth, but also to review a process which was followed in a largely unstructured but instinctual manner.
This reflection addresses the gaps identified by:
the development of a theoretical framework (Dynamic Learning Ecosystems) that integrates reflective practice with stakeholder-engaged curriculum design; and
providing evidence of dynamic learning ecosystems that honour both traditional and contemporary Public Governance knowledge systems.
Methodology
A governance and political transformation programme at a South African public university offers an interdisciplinary Bachelor of Arts degree that has historically drawn on Political Science and Public Administration as its core disciplines. The modules described in this study (identified by the GOV prefix) represent entirely new curriculum developments and not renewals of existing modules. They therefore represent the first systematic attempt, to the author’s knowledge, to develop a coherent Public Governance disciplinary identity within a South African higher education qualification of this nature. The aim was not to create a new standalone programme but to establish Public Governance as a distinct and coherent field of inquiry within an existing qualification, one that integrates and coordinates the contributions of Political Science, Public Administration, and other disciplines rather than replacing them.
Research Design
This study adopts a pragmatic ontology, recognising the dynamic and evolving nature of Public Governance teaching. This research takes the form of a desktop analysis utilising a qualitative design to delve into experiences, perspectives, and insights cultivated over three years of academic engagement. The study applies Gibb’s Reflective Cycle (1988) as an analytical framework to systematically examine the curriculum renewal process, with the goal of developing theoretical insights about effective curriculum design in Public Governance. I have applied Gibb’s Reflective Cycle retrospectively which provided a structured means to critically examine and articulate a curriculum renewal process that initially unfolded intuitively. Original actions and decisions were guided by professional judgement, contextual constraints, and implicit knowledge, retrospective reflection through Gibb’s framework allowed these experiences to be systematically analysed and interpreted. Using Gibb’s model (comprising the stages of description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion, and action plan) enabled a reflective reconstruction of the curriculum renewal process. It helped to identify what worked well, what challenges emerged and how underlying assumptions shaped decisions. Gibb’s structured approach also supported the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) in this project by turning experiential practice into evidence-based insight. In retrospect, it allowed for a transparent account of the curriculum renewal process, making learning from instinctive practice transferable, justifiable and theoretically grounded.
Data Collection Methods
Primary data sources included personal reflective notes from multi-stakeholder exchanges at conferences and workshops (2020–2023), documentation of curriculum development processes and module evolution, records of stakeholder feedback and input from industry practitioner, conference proceedings and presentations from #integritasza conference, and workshop outputs as well as collaborative session documentation.
Secondary data sources included academic literature on Public Governance as a concept, curriculum design, theoretical frameworks from SoTL publications, policy documents and governance reports referenced during stakeholder discussions.
The research draws extensively from documented interactions with governance practitioners, policy makers, and industry leaders at the annual #integritasza conferences (2020–2023). These conferences focused on themes including fighting corruption through value-driven communities (2020), local government and service delivery analysis, action and activism (2022), and coalition governance in South Africa (2023).
The stakeholder network included prominent academic figures from South African institutions including the CiviNovus Group, the Department of Agriculture in the Western Cape, the Dullah Omar Institute, and three South African Universities. Also included were professional practitioners in the public sphere from organisations such as such as an independent mayor, the Inclusive Society Institute of South Africa, and the One South Africa Movement. A co-sponsor for these events was also the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) who initiated the Democracy Development Programme in South Africa which supports capacity building for governance and civil society, and advocates for active citizenship.
Data Analysis Procedures
As indicated, this study employs narrative analysis of Gibb’s Reflective Cycle (1988) structure which encompasses six systematic stages: Description (documentation of stakeholder interactions and curriculum development processes), Feelings (reflection on emotional responses and initial reactions to stakeholder input), Evaluation (assessment of positive and negative aspects of collaborative approaches), Analysis (critical examination of patterns, themes, and relationships in stakeholder feedback), Conclusion (synthesis of insights and identification of key learning outcomes), and Action Planning (development of future strategies and implementation approaches).
Stakeholder input was systematically coded using inductive thematic analysis to identify recurring themes related to real-world governance challenges requiring curricular attention, skills gaps identified by practitioners in current graduates, innovative approaches to teaching Public Governance concepts, assessment strategies that reflect professional practice requirements, and integration of ethical considerations in Public Governance education.
Conference proceedings from multiple #integritasza events were analysed to identify evolving themes in governance practice and their implications for curriculum design, enabling the tracking of how professional discourse influenced module development over time.
Findings and Reflective Analysis
Description: The Three-Year Process Through Conference Engagement
The curriculum renewal process evolved organically through sustained engagement with governance practitioners at annual #integritasza conferences from 2020 to 2023, hosted by the Centre for Good Governance in Africa and School of Social Innovation at the Hugenote Kollege, Wellington, South Africa. At the time when I first attended this conference in 2020, the curriculum for the Bachelor of Arts in Governance and Political Transformation had not been renewed for more than a decade. The two major subjects were Public Administration and Political Science, with Communication Science as a minor. The Postgraduate Diploma in Governance and Political Transformation has not been renewed for more than a decade as well. This curriculum still included subjects like Municipal Management, Human Resources Management and Municipal Financial Management, together with some governance specific subjects such as Governance & Transformation, and Governing Change. The #integritasza conferences from 2020 to 2023 placed emphasis on different aspects of governance and, in particular, Public Governance. The following section explains how the main contributions of each year have ended up influencing and informing the outcomes and content of the new modules:
2020 Conference Impact: “Fighting Corruption through Value-Driven Communities.” This was the first of the #integritasza conferences I attended. The theme of the conference indicates that the focus was on the values at the heart of communities, which should be at the forefront to fight corruption in South Africa. This was against the backdrop of so-called “State Capture” where the then Zuma administration was accused of establishing vast networks of patronage and corruption which crippled all levels of government. The contributions in this conference fundamentally shaped the ethical foundation of the new modules I have subsequently developed. Contributions generally asserted that the law, and official political and government institutions are not sufficient to sustainably establish and maintain integrity. At this time, I was not focused on curriculum renewal yet, but rather on the postgraduate research focus of our academic programmes. However, in the end these assertions directly influenced the integration of ethics and value-based decision-making throughout our curricula. There was also emphasis on synergistic co-creation in government and societal partnerships. This became a central organising principle for module design, leading to the development of collaborative learning approaches that mirrored real-world governance partnerships.
2021 Conference Integration: “Integrity-Based Public and Corporate Governance Leadership.” At that point, the Programme for Governance and Political Transformation had undergone an external programme review. The feedback regarding our teaching practices was positive, but there were concerns about the outdatedness of the academic content. The feedback received from the review was instrumental towards the motivation to embark on significant steps to renew the Postgraduate Diploma curriculum by developing new 16 credit modules. At that time, the content and outcomes of these modules were yet to be determined. The 2021 conference provided direction on what could possibly be included in the new modules by focusing on integrity-based leadership. This ended up providing important input for developing curriculum outcomes that would capacitate students to evaluate not just technical knowledge but ethical reasoning capabilities. In addition to the conference theme and contributions, specific interactions with speakers from the Inclusive Society Institute (ISI) 2 for instance, made it clear that the incorporation of global best practices and comparative governance approaches in module content, would be required.
2022 Conference Transformation: “Local Government and Service Delivery.” The 2022 conference directly addressed municipal governance challenges and provided practical case studies. What became evident in these contributions, was that the partnership and networks necessary for effective and constructive local governance, were either absent or seriously damaged due to service delivery failures by local government and the burden this placed on communities, civil society and the private sector to mitigate these failures. These documented service delivery disasters which resulted from crumbling infrastructure and poor service delivery informed the development of problem-based learning scenarios. Discussions on citizen initiatives in many municipal areas where communities and civil society found socially innovative solutions led to the integration of community engagement projects as assessment components in the new modules.
Building on the lessons of the 2021 conference and the fresh perspective brought by the 2022 conference’s focus on Integrity-Based Public and Corporate Governance Leadership, I developed a more refined view of the direction I wanted to take with the new modules. One conversation provided significant clarity. The venue of this conference has a large labyrinth on the premises. I took a walk with a municipal manager of one of the district municipalities in the Western Cape in this labyrinth and amongst other topics, I asked her what she would like a new graduate of our programme to know and what basic skills they should have. Naturally, no curriculum could provide all the aspects in her “wish list”, but I realised then that deeper understanding of the integrated nature of Public Governance, as well as skills in strategic thinking is necessary. The outcome of that conversation became integral to the development of course material in the new developed modules.
After this conference and specifically that conversation with the municipal manager, I had the confidence to embark on the development of new modules for our curricula which reflected the core theoretical developments in Public Governance, as well as addressing real-world problem solving in the South African context. These modules are:
Undergraduate modules:
GOVG1514 “This is Governance” – Foundational module introducing Public Governance concepts with emphasis on African perspectives, directly incorporating insights from the 2020 conference on value-driven communities.
GOCS1524 “Systems and Processes in Public Governance” – Developed to address complex, adaptive systems discussions emerging from conference interactions, particularly around social innovation for governance.
GOVB2614 “Introduction to Community Based Governance” – Both the 2022 and 2023 conferences, with their focus on local service delivery challenges informed the content of this module. The emphasis is on understanding the empowerment required for communities to build partnerships and networks to participate in the decision-making, and development and management of their own resources.
GOVK2624 “Introduction to Knowledge Based Governance” – Developed to address data-driven governance. This module emphasise evidence-based decision making which was highlighted by practitioners in all the relevant conferences. The focus is on understanding what Big Data is, and how to create knowledge, and ultimately wisdom from information.
GOVA3714 “Basics of Applied Public Governance” – An exit module designed to be offered with a hybrid teaching approach with online and synchronous learning. Learners will make use of an existing governance system to apply to a real-world case study by incorporating the knowledge they obtained in year level 2.
GOVR3724 “Research project in Public Governance” – This is an exit module designed for learners to be able to reflect on the knowledge, skills, and abilities they are expected to acquire throughout the course. This module will assess the ability of the student to engage in independent research (with basic research methodology introduced), and to apply their knowledge and skills to a specific problem or issue in the field of Public Governance.
Postgraduate Diploma Modules:
GOVK5814 “Knowledge Based Governance” – Advanced module building on the knowledge obtained on undergraduate level. Emphasis is also on ethics in knowledge creation.
GOVB5824 “Community Based Governance” – A postgraduate-level exploration comparing and evaluating best practice in Community Based Governance in various cases globally and locally.
GOVC5824 “Communicating Governance” – Module addressing communication in public governance, emphasising citizen engagement underpinned by access to high quality information .
Feelings and Reflections
The reflective process revealed both excitement and apprehension about departing from traditional curriculum development approaches. The organic, stakeholder driven process generated enthusiasm but also created uncertainty about outcomes and quality assurance since these modules are unique in the South African context. The collaborative nature of engagements with the groups of people mentioned in the previous section, fostered a sense of shared ownership which was comforting. At the time of developing these modules, I became aware of the persistent tension between maintaining academic rigor and responding to inputs, particularly when stakeholder suggestions diverged from conventional academic approaches. Ultimately this tension proved productive, forcing critical examination of what constitutes valuable knowledge in education.
The emotional dimensions of this process ranged from initial scepticism I had to navigate in fear of diluting academic standards through practitioner engagement, to ultimately recognising that stakeholder input enriched rather than compromise the quality of education in our curriculums. Since the 1st year level modules were phased in in 2025, trepidation has made way for gratification when seeing learners engage with the content with enthusiasm.
An earlier and formative emotional response in this process was the professional discomfort of recognising that our own curriculum replicated precisely the gap I have identified in the literature – a programme named for governance yet structured around disciplines that predated the field’s theoretical development. Naming this discomfort was the first step toward purposeful action.
Evaluation: Positive and Negative Aspects
Positive outcomes included enhanced relevance of curriculum content to real-world practice due to increased engagement from stakeholders in the public sphere. The postgraduate diploma modules were phased in from 2024. Feedback from students is positive across the board. They recognise the connection between coursework and professional practice which translates to improved understanding of the connection between theory and practice. Authentic case studies and scenario analysis enhances depth of understanding. The undergraduate modules were phased in from the first semester of 2025. Informal feedback is positive, but formal feedback will be collected at the end of the academic year for the two first year modules and will be continued for the 2nd and 3rd year modules in 2026 and 2027 respectively.
The stakeholder engagement process revealed unexpected benefits. Practitioners gained new appreciation for the process of developing curriculums, and the dilemma academic institutions face when attempting to keep content relevant and teaching approaches constructive while adhering to national teaching policies and standards. What is also beneficial is that the conference cycle has created natural review points for continued curriculum assessment and refinement.
Challenges encountered included difficulty in standardising assessment approaches across modules developed through different stakeholder interactions and balancing academic rigour with practical application when these values and expectations differ from one stakeholder to the next. This aspect will be addressed in a separate contribution focusing specifically on assessment.
Analysis: Understanding Critical Success Factors
The analysis part of this reflection reveals that curriculum renewal success depends on various important factors emerging through sustained conference participation and reflective examination of the process. These factors are as follows:
Multi-Stakeholder Knowledge Networks
The #integritasza conferences created unique knowledge networks spanning academic, political and practitioner communities. The diversity of participants provided an authentic context and real-world relevance that traditional academic approaches often lack. This network enabled cross-pollination of ideas directly influencing curriculum content and teaching methodologies. The analysis also revealed that the value of networks is not only derived from diversity but also from sustained engagement over time.
Contemporary Relevance Trough Current Issues
Each conference’s thematic focus addressed pressing governance challenges, ensuring curriculum content remained current and applicable. Analysis revealed some temporal challenges: rapidly changing contexts meant that the curriculum could become dated quickly, requiring mechanisms for continuous updating rather than periodic revision. In addition, the necessity to include the impact of Artificial Intelligence in Public Governance as 4/5IR tool became unavoidable. A separate submission is on the cards for this phenomenon. The solution emerged through designing modules with flexible content frameworks allowing insertion of contemporary examples while maintaining stable learning outcomes the theoretical foundations.
Ethical Integration Through Lived Experience
The emphasis on integrity and ethics throughout these conference proceedings justified the integration of ethical reasoning throughout the curriculum rather than treating ethics as a separate module. Analysis demonstrated that ethical competence develops through repeated practice across contexts, rather than isolated instruction. This approach reflects the recognition that governance practitioners face ethical dilemmas in all aspects of their work, requiring ethical reasoning as a core competency.
Adaptive Learning Through Reiterative Engagement
The annual conference cycle provided an environment where curriculum renewal could be considered based on evolving professional discourse. This iterative process ensured that the considerations in developing new modules included making these modules responsive to emerging challenges while building on established foundations. Analysis revealed that it would be important to have structured reflection points for curriculum review. Doing the review of my curriculum renewal process after the fact, instead of during the process, also emphasised the importance of documenting stakeholder input in a systematic manner in future; infrastructure deliberately created for consideration, rather than assuming organic emergence.
Theoretical Integration with Practice
Analysis revealed the essential role of theoretical frameworks in making sense of practice experiences. It is easy to focus so much on the practice side of things, which risks abstraction and irrelevance without theory. Effective curriculum development required continuous interrogation between theoretical and practical knowledge in Public Governance, which is a manifestation of the theoretical evolution of Public Governance discussed earlier. This finding also challenged any assumptions that might still exist placing theory and practice as competing rather than complementary knowledge forms.
Conclusion: Emerging Framework Components
Through the systematic reflection on the three-year curriculum renewal process, three essential components emerged that together constitute what can be termed a “Dynamic Learning Ecosystem” for Public Governance education. These components do not represent predetermined design principles, but rather empirically grounded insights arising from sustained stakeholder engagement and critical analysis of curriculum development experiences. A companion article 3 provides a detailed elaboration of this framework and its implications.
Component 1: Theoretical Foundation: The first component establishes the theoretical grounding for curriculum design in Public Governance education. It recognises that Public Governance is a continuously evolving field, requiring frameworks that remain adaptable to new knowledge, policy shifts, and societal needs. Rather than adhering to rigid, discipline-based models, this foundation embraces flexible, adaptive curriculum design that positions students as active participants in constructing knowledge. This approach emerged from the realisation that static, content-heavy curricula are ill-suited to fields such as Public Governance where knowledge, practice and societal expectations change rapidly.
Component 2: Pedagogical Approach: The second component focuses on how learning takes place, centring pedagogy on authentic, practice-oriented experiences. The emphasis is on a flexible curriculum structure that evolves through feedback and reflection. Learning must be grounded in real-world problem-solving, encouraging students to engage with genuine governance challenges drawn from practitioner experiences and stakeholder dialogue. Practical application through community engagement, simulations, and partnerships bridges theory and practice. This pedagogical approach took shape from observing how practitioners and stakeholders engaged to solve problems, moving towards participatory and experience-based learning.
Component 3: Ethical and Contextual Integration: The third component highlights the ethical and contextual dimensions of Public Governance education. It emphasises the need expressed by stakeholders during the 2020 #integritasza conference for practitioners and stakeholders alike, to foster ethical reasoning as a continuous presence in decision-making.
The Dynamic Learning Ecosystems Framework
These three components – Theoretical Foundation, Pedagogical Approach, and Ethical and Contextual Integration – must function as interconnected, mutually reinforcing dimensions of a dynamic system. The framework suggests that effective Public Governance education emerges from continuous interaction among these components, with each informing and strengthening the others through repeated feedback processes.
The “ecosystem” metaphor captures several essential characteristics: interconnectedness among components, dynamic evolution in response to environmental changes, adaptive capacity for self-correction, and holistic integration where value emerges from these components’ interaction rather than from any single component. The framework positions reflective practice as the process through which the ecosystem learns, adapts and improves.
As mentioned, a companion article provides a comprehensive elaboration of this framework, examining implementation strategies, implications for Public Governance education, and future research directions.
Conclusions
The reflective analysis of a three-year curriculum renewal process has demonstrated how systematic application of Gibb’s Reflective Cycle can generate valuable insights for Public Governance education, even when this model is applied retrospectively. Application showed that through sustained engagement with governance practitioners and stakeholders at these annual #integritasza conferences, the curriculum development process was enriched by real-world perspectives as well as contemporary challenges.
There were some limitations in the application of Gibb’s Reflective Cycle. The model’s retrospective application meant that some nuances of in-the-moment decision-making may have been filtered through memory and rationalisation. Curriculum development is also not always linear and structured while Gibb’s model assumes an organised, well-planned process.
The study has documented how each conference theme, from fighting corruption through value-driven communities, to fostering problem-solving attitudes directly informed curriculum content and pedagogical approaches. This process resulted in a renewed curriculum comprising nine new modules spanning undergraduate and postgraduate levels, each reflecting the integration of ethical considerations and collaborative governance principles. Theoretically, the study identified three core components constitute a learning framework for Public Governance education. This contributes to the conceptual advancement of teaching and learning in this field. The findings also demonstrate how Gibb’s Reflective Cycle can be retrospectively applied to a multi-year, multi-stakeholder curriculum renewal process, which contributes methodology for curriculum renewal research. Contextually, the research advanced the development of a Public Governance curriculum that honours local knowledge systems while integrating contemporary governance principles. On a practical level, this process resulted in the development of concrete curriculum outcomes, including nine new modules that exemplify stakeholder-engaged design principles and promote forward-looking Public Governance education.
Future research will include an in-depth analysis of the Dynamic Learning Ecosystems framework for Public Governance education, as well as a longitudinal study to track the influence of the knowledge and skills obtained by students after completing the new modules in places of work in the public sector.
Footnotes
Ethical Considerations
Ethical clearance to conduct this research was obtained through a process of review by the General/Human Research Ethics Committee (GHREC) at the case study university. Ethical considerations were addressed through maintaining confidentiality of individual stakeholders and practitioners who contributed to the conferences and with whom I had interactions. All sources were appropriately cited and intellectual property rights respected throughout the analysis. Organisers of the conferences were informed about the research purposes of conference participation and provided consent for expressing which aspects of the contributions of conference participants influenced the curriculum renewal process and my reflection.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.