Key challenges of studying public administration in developing countries: An exploration from Bangladesh and Sri Lanka

ABSTRACT

In this article, we explored the challenges of PA education in developing countries. Based on interviews in two developing countries (Bangladesh and Sri Lanka), we identified a number of challenges that fall under two broader umbrellas: teaching-related and research-related challenges. The teaching-related challenges include the problem with curriculum, materials, teaching methods, student-teacher ratio, and the scope of capacity building. On the other, we identified several research-related challenges such as funding, data availability, research training, and access to software. These problems are creating barriers to having a quality PA education in the sampled countries. Though the findings are based on two developing countries, most of the problems identified here may also be applicable to other developing countries. And some of the identified strategies in the article can also be beneficial for other developing countries to have a better PA education.

KEYWORDS:

• Barriers
• challenges
• developing countries
• PA education
• South Asia

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

There is no specific funding to write this manuscript.

Notes on contributors

Hasan Muhammad Baniamin

Dr. Hasan Muhammad Baniamin is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science and Sociology, and at the South Asian Institute of Policy and Governance (SIPG), North South University, Bangladesh. He obtained PhD from the Department of Administration and Organization Theory, University of Bergen, Norway. His research interests include e-governance, health policy, behavioral public administration, institutional performance, and trust, and he has published articles on these issues in journals such as Public Administration, Public Organisation Review, International Political Science Review, and International Journal of Public Administration.

Ramesh Ramasamy

Dr. Ramesh Ramasamy is a senior lecturer in Political Science at the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. He obtained his Ph.D. under the NORHED project on Governance and Policy Studies in South Asia. His research interests are mainly on quality of government, corruption, institutional trust, public service delivery and citizenship rights. His recent publications include Quality of Government, Citizenship Rights and Access to Public Services: Evidence from Sri Lanka (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021); “Youth radicalization and violent extremism: a study of pathways in the post-war context of Sri Lanka” (Journal of Youth Studies, 2022), and “Corruption–Poverty Nexus: Evidence from Panel ARDL Approach for SAARC Countries” (Asian Journal of Comparative Politics, 2022).