The idea to establish the study of public administration at the Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Kosice had offspring as the outcome of cooperation with the Bayreuth University. In 1993 the Public Administration Institute had been established at the Law Faculty as a result of the decision made by the former University Rector Professor Dušan Podhradský, DrSc. It is stated by the document issued on the 28th October 1998 No. 1/98 § 4 clause 2 and § 13 clause 2 Article No. 172/1990 Coll. on academe education as amended by law. Consequently the Faculty of Public Administration had been established on the 1st of October 1996. Up to now it has come into being as the first faculty sui generis and as the fourth faculty of Pavla Jozef Šafárik Univerzity in Košice. Doc. PhDr. Ladislav Lovaš, CSc. had received a mandate to put the rector`s decision into practice, and per consequence he had become the first Faculty Public Administration dean.
The Faculty establishment had been inspired by other countries experiences whose experts emphasized the necessity of not only the specific character of the public administration education but at the same time to offer the systematic universal academic instruction regarding the training of modern public administration employees. Nevertheless, that is to say, that meaning and mission of the public administration remains the important requirement for the development of lawful, democratic and social state. Therefore, it is indispensable to provide a specific education and training of the future administrators and managers in in the field of the state administration and self-governing administration.
From its beginning the Faculty of Public Administration has been building its personnel structure and their qualification advancement accompanied by the creation of the new study subjects pursuing the mutual connections and relations among them. Besides that, the Faculty has fostering to set up the appropriate content of the state exams conception, to create the adequate educational texts, to foster the formation of its own scientific and research programs accompanied by seeking the adequate partnership relations for the mutual cooperation in the field of public administration at home and abroad as well. All those efforts have been pretentious and have been challenging just from its beginning.
Since its foundation on 31st August 2016 the Faculty has achieved accreditation in the study program public administration covering all three stages of daily and extramural study forms, the first and second stages of the study program European public administration, and in addition the international master study program “public policy and public administration in Central Europe” enabling the students from the Slovak Republic and the Czech Republic to obtain the joint degree, diploma valid in both states. On the base of agreement the Faculty enables students to obtain the double degree on the bachelor stage of the study program “public administration “at the Metropolitan University in Prague.
In 2004 the Faculty of Public Administration had achieved accreditation for the study program “psychology” for all three study stages and for the study program “social work” of the Bachelor stage. All the mentioned programs substantially strengthened both the professional as well as the personnel characters of the Philosophical faculty UPJŠ in Košice at the time when the Philosophical faculty was under the creation.
Since the establishment of our Faculty more than 1700 graduates have obtained the academic title “master”, seven have obtained the title PhD and 172 graduates the title PhDr.
