The Institute of Public Administration “BIPA” signed a partnership agreement for the implementation of the master's program in public administration with the National School of Administration in France, by doing this BIPA is finishing an essential step towards completing a tripartite partnership project between the Institute and two partners, one local and another international, it is a project which is considered a strategic step for starting introducing more developmental programs that contribute to the creation of distinctive administrative cadres in order to achieve the economic vision of the Kingdom of Bahrain 2030, the Institute’s representative the Director General of BIPA Dr. Raed Mohammed bin Shams, and the French side representative the Director of Research at the National School of Administration Fabris Larit signed the agreement, the signing ceremony was also attended by the French Ambassador to the Kingdom of Bahrain Mr. Christian Tiesto and the CEO of the Quality Assurance Authority for Education and Training in the Kingdom (QAAET) Dr. Jawaher Almadhaki, in addition to a number of presidents of local universities and BIPA’s senior staff and advisors.
The Director General of BIPA Dr. Raed Mohammed bin Shams underlined the importance of making the utmost benefits from the program on the basis of the region's need for such types of studies that are based on mutual cooperation between practitioners and academics, stressing the importance of involving peoples of academics experience in designing, building and adding a local touch to the program, revealing that the local partner must be one of the higher education institutions authorized by the Board of Higher Education and the Ministry of Education in Bahrain and possessing a high degree of evaluation from QAAET in Bahrain or relevant institutions of quality assurance.
Bin Shams stated that the master's program in public administration aims to develop a new cadre of civil servants equipped with modern knowledge and public sector administration techniques in the political and social context of the government work, with the aim of improving the quality of public service, as well as to supply the government organizations and civil servants with skills and knowledge in areas such as: making public policy, public sector management, planning and strategic change management, State budget and public finances, partnerships between public and private sectors and contracts management, human resources management in the public sector, the economy, politics and society in the Gulf region, leadership, ethics, and values in the public service, not to mention attracting students and faculties from all over the Arab region.
Bin Shams revealed that the emergence of the idea of such an academic program from BIPA came also to meet the actual needs of the labor market, where the Institute is familiar with the shortcomings and the types of development that public sector employees need.
Bin Shams indicated that, since the main objective of the establishment of BIPA was to provide a value-added training for civil servants, and that the Government of the Kingdom aims to provide high quality services, and because the quality of service delivery depends on the quality of people who provide these services, then the critical issue in improving government services is making sure that public sector employees have the necessary skills and abilities to provide effective service, and added: ” … in this sense came the introduction of the Master's program in public Administration by BIPA in partnership with local and international academic institutions, to achieve all of these objectives and key strategies previously referred to, particularly in terms of developing current and future generations of civil service leaders and employees to enable the Kingdom of accessing to the global level in the public sector performance.”
The French ambassador to the Kingdom of Bahrain expressed his happiness of having French candidates within the nominations in plans aimed at development and upgrading, stressing that the field of education and training is very important, explaining that the national “government” school for administration played a pivotal, important and prominent role in the field of development and progress of French education.
Furthermore, BIPA has set conditions to identify an international partner to work with in the development of the feasibility study for the program, and the Institute stipulated that the international partner should own active and effective research centers and possess academic abilities and has a paramount experience in the field of public administration research and studies, and to develop an agenda for research and studies in this area that stems from the special condition of the Kingdom and the region, which is what was found in the Institute's French partner.
The National School of Administration in France was established in 1945 by General de Gaulle, and the most important goal was to reach the highest levels of efficiency among the staff of the French public sector through providing specialized courses in vocational training for senior French civil servants.