Abstract:

The Degree in Public Management and Administration (PMA) at the Universitat Jaume I (Castellon, Spain) (UJI) started in the academic year 2011-2012 and, in 2018, it has passed its first re-accreditation process by the authority Agència Valenciana d’Avaluació i Prospectiva (AVAP) of the Generalitat Valenciana, our regional accreditation agency on behalf the Spanish agency ANECA.

The overall assessment of the provisional report of the title was: FAVORABLE TO THE RENEWAL OF ACCREDITATION. In the interim report, despite of being favorable, a series of weaknesses of the title that recommend revising and reinforcing are highlighted. But there also are strengths so that the balance is a favorable valuation. Among the most important weaknesses that the evaluation commission has highlighted are the following:
(1) excess supply of places in the first year that, with the general trend in enrollment, and the history of occupation of places in the degree, it is estimated that it will never be reached;
(2) lack of organization and communication regarding external practices, as well as lack of relationship of employer agents;
(3) high drop-out rate partially due to professional lack of definition of the degree;
(4) restriction to evening schedules conditions teaching and penalizes the full-time faculty rate; and
(5) it is not fully complied with that adequate and updated information is published on the characteristics of the training program, its development and its results, including that related to the monitoring and accreditation processes.

With respect to the strengths, the following must be highlighted:
(1) there is an internal quality assurance system whose procedures facilitate the follow-up of the degree,
(2) the academic staff of the degree meets the level of academic qualification required for the degree and has the appropriate professional, teaching and research experience;
(3) the support staff, that participates in the training activities, is adequate;
(4) the training activities, their teaching methodologies and the evaluation systems used are, at a global level, adequate and reasonably adjusted to the objective of acquiring the expected learning results, based on the results of student satisfaction and graduates.

In this paper, the authors, who are all members of the PMA Degree Commission, intend to describe the weaknesses detected by the evaluation commission, most of them were already identified in the self-assessment report, and the strengths highlighted in the report. In addition, the proposed initiatives are exposed, some already in operation, to reinforce the weaknesses and maintain the strengths.

Keywords:

Public Management and Administration Degree, First Academic Re-accreditation, Improvement initiatives.