HOW TO IMPROVE PROJECT-BASED LEARNING IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION EDUCATION?

Project-based learning is a frequently used pedagogical tool, including in public administration (PA) education programs to promote practice-oriented education. The realisation of project-based learning in PA education programs faces some problems that influence the development of practical skills. One of the important problems is that students take projects on as a hypothetical educational task but not as a real project being confronted but specific region or territory. As a result not only the quality of the project but also the educational result becomes worse. If one of the goals of PA education is to help students acquire practical skills, the issue is how to make students’ work in class do that. We think that the answer to this question can help to improve project-based learning in PA programs.
In this article we show that promoting project-based learning is possible, but it demands a special approach in the organization of the projects. We analyze the experience of the organization of students’ projects in PA master programs and identify that this approach has two main elements. First, the practitioners from the project area should be engaged in the project. Second, real problems confronted city or region should be chosen as the object of students’ project work. The best result can be achieved when students have opportunity to work on these real problems. The article also proposes some perspectives of the development of the project-based learning in PA programs.