Strengthening Mexican public service education and governmental capacity through international affiliation

ABSTRACT

A strong and professional civil service is widely recognized as an important condition for a high-capacity and effective government. Similarly, high quality public service education is a means of strengthening and professionalizing civil service. Quality assurance and accreditation mechanisms, both domestic and international, are tools for improving educational quality. This article examines public service education in Mexico for a strategy for international engagement with NASPAA. The purpose of such engagement would be to expose Mexican public service education to international norms and standards and to demonstrate how doing so could lead to forms of affiliation and to the development of Mexican quality assurance mechanisms. We make the case that strengthening graduate public service education in this fashion can lead both to better internal governance and to enhanced international collaboration, credibility, and competitiveness for Mexico, while also being a possible model for NASPAA’s interactions with programs in other nations similarly situated.

KEYWORDS:

• International affiliation
• Mexican higher education
• public service education

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Chester Haskell

Chester Haskell is an international consultant to higher education and a partner in the Edu-Alliance Group. He has extensive experience in higher education leadership and administration, including serving more than 13 years in senior positions at Harvard University and 11 years as president of two small, specialized private institutions in California. International aspects of higher education have always been at the forefront of his interests. He currently concentrates on educational quality and accreditation issues in the U.S., Mexico, Western Europe, and the Middle East. He also works with national governments and accreditation bodies in several countries.

Guillermo Hernandez

Guillermo Hernández is a higher education leader in Mexico with more than 30 years of international experience in research and the development of mobility programs for students, faculty members, researchers and institutional rectors. He has worked with institutions and higher education agencies in North America, Latin America, Europe, Israel, China and Japan. Since 2013, he has been the General Director of Strategic Partnerships at the National Association of Universities and Higher Education Institutions (ANUIES).