What is the Importance of Public Administration?

Abstract

Public administration is a whole consisted of its structure, policy, practice, personnel, budget, audit, education and research components. This article aims to examine public administration in Turkey with its education and research dimensions. The article analyses public administration education at undergraduate and graduate levels, education programs for public personnel and executive, civic education and research on public administration. The article examines several theoritical approaches in the field of public administration with a particular focus on the United States, on federal public services and bureaucracy. 

This article argues that in the case of Turkey, the contribution of public administration education and research to increasing the quality of public services, the employment of public personnel with a scientific perspective on the administration of society, and the inclusion of those equipped with public administration knowledge at senior and mid-level administration levels requires a development. While drawing attention to the importance of public administration education programs to build solid and permanent bridges to all schools where public service officers are trained, it is stated that public administration education is also necessary for other professions such as lawyers, engineers, teachers, social workers and health workers in the public sector.

The article argues that the trainings of public administrators should be designed to include fundamental values such as individual initiative, personal competence and honesty, responsibility, coordination, financial control, leadership, sensitivity, fairness and morality. The article argues that civic education and active citizenship as important components that need to be developed along with public administration education. This study emphasizes that there is still a room for improvement in terms of the contribution of public administration research in Turkey to policy design processes and improving the quality of public services.