Public Administration Executive Masters (EMPA)

Preparing managers for senior public administration roles

The Executive Masters in Public Administration program is designed to prepare graduate students for senior managerial and leadership roles in their organizations.

The curriculum is firmly grounded in the functional areas of the business enterprise, with a focus on the public administration industry. The curriculum also offers an option in Police Studies for students wishing to specialize in the area of police administration.

The Executive Masters in Public Administration (EMPA) program aims to educate public sector administrators in the best practices of public administration, making them able to assimilate and process information from their community, their region and the world. Simultaneously, the EMPA will aid students in developing and implementing policy that will efficiently serve the United Arab Emirate's ambitious development plans.

Send an Information Request to learn more about this EMPA program from Zayed University

EMPA candidate snapshot

Admission is open to males and females of all nationalities.

This EMPA is designed for mature and motivated individuals with an administrative or government background. Participants should be currently, or planning to be, associated with the local public administration sector in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) or the international public administration industry.

Additionally, business managers who are currently employed in the public administration field, government officials associated with ministries, departments, agencies, and authorities responsible for supervising public policy, and senior administrators from a variety of government agencies are all prime candidates to benefit greatly from the Executive Masters in Public Administration.

Admission Requirements

Applicants to the Executive Masters in Public Administration must have

• completed a four-year baccalaureate degree with a GPA of 2.5 or higher from an accredited university.
• have at least three years of mid- to upper-level management experience
• demonstrate sufficient English proficiency to manage a challenging, fast-paced program.

 For more information on admission, contact the Zayed University Admissions Department

At the beginning of the program, students take an intensive one-day orientation. The orientation offers a number of workshops to introduce students to the program, during which students are introduced to Blackboard (virtual classroom software), case study and analysis, library resources, and the writing of reports and reference citations.

The EMPA curriculum consists of 12 six and one-half week courses for a total of 36 credit hours for the Executive Masters degree.

Year One

• EMPA 502 Governance in a Global Context
• EMPA 503 Comparative Public Sector Administration (or EMPA 520 Criminology: The Sociology and Economics of Crime - for Police Studies students)
• EMPA 504 Public Human Resource Management
• EMPA 505 Quantitative and IT Methods for Public Policy and Administration
• EMPA 506 Applied Research Methods in Public Policy and Administration
• EMPA 507 Public Policy Formulation and Analysis

Year Two

• EMPA 508 Public Sector Budgeting and Finance
• EMPA 509 Program Evaluation (or EMPA 521 Strategic Police Management - for Police Studies students)
• EMPA 510 The Practice of Public Administration (or EMPA 522 Future Directions in Policing - for Police Studies students)
• EMPA 511 Strategic Leadership for Organizational Improvement
• EMPA 512 Legal and Ethical Issues in the UAE: The Public Administration Context
• EMPA 599 Capstone Seminar

 Learn more about the Zayed EMPA program content here.

The format for delivering the EMPA program is designed to minimize time away from work and family while maximizing interaction with fellow students and faculty.

Faculty members utilize a mix of in-classroom and distance learning instruction that demonstrate the flexibility needed to accommodate experienced working graduates. The four-day on-site (in-classroom) instruction for each course is normally conducted every six and one-half weeks on a Saturday and Sunday and the following Friday and Saturday in full day sessions. Attendance of workshops is compulsory.

Additional off-site lectures are provided on CDs. Blackboard customized courseware, with e-mail and course management features, is used to deliver the offsite computer-based portion of the curriculum. Portions of some courses involve videoconferencing. Students and faculty interact frequently to exchange e-mail, transfer files, submit papers, and access course materials in the form of PowerPoint slides during courses.

Another unique feature of the EMPA program is that it offers an option in Police Studies for students wishing to specialize in the area of police administration. Students taking this option will enrol in three specialized Police Studies courses that are substituted for three other EMPA courses. (See Curriculum for details.)

The program cost of the Zayed University EMPA is AED128,000, however, academic merit-based scholarships are offered.

 Contact Zayed University here for more information about program fees and scholarship information