The diploma will have the same rigor as the existing Master in Public Administration (MPA) offered by the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. At the same time, the curriculum and content are designed and customized to address local and regional issues in public administration.

The Executive Diploma in Public Administration is comprised of six core modules:

Managing the Public Sector

This module covers major approaches to the understanding and management of public sector organizations, including both government and non-profit organizations. It introduces students to specific concepts and tools for important functional areas of public administration, such as human and financial resource management. Students will also learn how to apply and critique a range of mechanisms to improve the performance of public sector organizations, including those arising from the so-called New Public Management school of thought.

Economic Applications for Public Organizations

The main objective of this module is to describe how basic concepts in economics are applicable at different levels in public administration. The module commences with a presentation of the basic concepts and illustrates the applicability and relevance of these concepts to decision making by recourse to a set of case studies as well as widely cited examples in public administration. Topics covered include markets and Pareto efficiency, markets and property rights, market failure, natural monopolies, strategic outcomes, economic cycles and stabilization, as well as long-run economic processes and structural changes.

Public Finance and Budgeting

The objective of this module is to understand the basic principles and logic of government fiscal activities and government budgets. This module helps students become familiar with analytical approaches to resource allocation and decision evaluations in the public sector. Major topics covered include the rationale for the public sector, options for financing government expenditure, taxation policy, expenditure policy, fiscal decentralization, privatization, the role of cost recovery and user charges, budgeting systems and techniques and capital budgeting.

Policy Analysis and Program Evaluation

Government officials are frequently confronted with decisions about whether or not to initiate, continue, modify or terminate policies or programmes, and skills in policy analysis and program evaluation are essential for them to make intelligent choices. This module introduces the key concepts and tools in the professional practices of policy analysis and program evaluation in the public sector. Main topics covered in the module are process of policy analysis, market failures, government failures, information structuring, data collection methods, decision matrices, cost-benefit analysis and program evaluation.

Public Administration in Theory and Practice

The objectives of this module are to introduce key concepts relating to the theory and practice of public administration. The module uses both a comparative approach and case studies of relevance to link theory to the real-world practice of public administration. The module is organized around five themes including foundations (key concepts and contexts of public administration), core functions (different types of public organizations), processes, values and challenges.

Topics in Applied Public Policy

This module will explore how globalization affects and is affected by global public policy. The objective is to understand opportunities that global structures and processes make available to national policy makers as well as the constraints they impose. Students will examine compelling case studies from different regions of the world that illustrate best practices for instituting effective policy. This module will be structured around topics of current relevance.