THE POSTGRADUATE EDUCATION IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION: THE CHALLENGE OF THE NEW CONCEPT OF PUBLIC SERVANT

The postgraduate education in Latin America is the responsibility of institutions that regulate science and higher education. Although there are differences between countries in the institutional insertion, the magnitude or the characteristics of these programs, all assign an important role. The major executors of postgraduate education are universities. They have the task of conceiving, arguing, designing and developing the postgraduate programms. The increasing economic development of Latin America in the most recent decade has stimulated the number of granted scholarships, the introduction of mechanisms for evaluation of the quality of the postgraduate programs and a larger thematic, geographic and institutional widening, among other advantages. But the University remains as the responsible for detecting the training needs to turn them into offers of postgraduate programs that are, at the same time, relevant and viable. This work summarizes the results of a documentary study to demonstrate the relevance and feasibility of postgraduate programs for the public administration in the Ecuador.