NEW EXECUTIVE COURSE: Public Leadership and Governance

Upon successful completion of the course, you should be able to:

• Apply conceptual and analytical frameworks within the context of their organisation
• Work in groups and to be able to understand their outputs and how these relate to the broader working environment
• Write, analyse and communicate in a range of media and forms
• Lead, collect information, analyse problems, make judgements, implement decisions and delegate
• Develop and maintain a culture supportive of the organisation's mission
• Structure the organisation's resources to facilitate achieving its mission
• Reflect as practitioners on their work processes
• Develop their individual capacity and competence in public management and administration in the areas of strategic capability and leadership, policy formulation and implementation, service delivery fundamentals, change and public finance
• Demonstrate both readiness for further study, and capacity to function at a defined cognitive level.

Status of certificate

• As per the Council for Higher Education (CHE), a short course that does not carry credit towards a qualification on the HEQSF cannot be assigned and allocated NQF levels and credits.

• Short courses are short learning programmes offered by higher education institutions outside their formal structured undergraduate and postgraduate programmes and they, therefore, do not lead to qualifications on the Higher Education Qualifications Sub-Framework (HEQSF). They serve a range of social and educational purposes, including improving or refreshing participants’ knowledge and skills in a particular field, improving participants’ readiness for specific formal higher education programmes, continuing professional development, learning to use technology, personal fulfilment, social development and good citizenship, to mention a few. (https://www.che.ac.za/sites/default/files/publications/CHE%20Good%20Practice%20Guide%20September%202016%20PDF.pdf)

• You will receive a Certificate of Competence on successful completion of this course.

This course is designed to articulate to the Postgraduate Diploma in Management (PDM) and is NOT credit bearing for the PDM. A participant who obtains 65% or above for the short course is eligible to apply for the PDM.

Module 1: ECONOMICS
Introduction to supply and demand; the functioning of markets; the role of the state in the economy; stakeholder interests in economic policy determination.

Module 2: PUBLIC FINANCE
Introduction to public sector economics, public expenditure, public finance and public accountability.

Module 3: GOVERNANCE AND DEVELOPMENT
Approaches of social change, economic growth and development. Power, politics and democracy.
Models of governance and approaches to public sector reform.

Module 4: ETHICS IN DEVELOPMENTAL LEADERSHIP
Understanding Leadership, management, organisation and institutional governance and analysing and applying the concepts of equity and the ethics of leading resource distribution, governance and developmental approaches.

Module 5: PUBLIC POLICY
Institutions of public policy. Legal and legislative frameworks. Policy processes and cycles. Frameworks of policy analysis.

Module 6: MANAGING CHANGE
Strategy development, Change management as well as strategic human resource management and development. Organisational design and development and communication for change.

Module 7: MANAGING SERVICE DELIVERY
Analysis of service delivery, performance and applying basic project and financial management. Processes, systems and techniques for operational management.

Module 8: MANAGING INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS
Analysing of communications, decision-making, negotiations and conflict management including information gathering and processing skills and applying information technology in the context of public management.

Module 9: MONITORING AND EVALUATION
Introduction to the development intervention cycle to place and understand the roles of management, monitoring and evaluation in any society's developmental efforts. Attention is given to understanding and applying the fundamentals of evaluation. The course is delivered in
the context of operations of the participants.

Assessment methods:

• Formative assessment = 50%
• Summative assessment = 50%

• NQF 6 or equivalent qualification.
• A minimum of three years of relevant work experience.
   

All applicants are required to complete an admissions test, which assesses comprehension, writing skills, numerical ability, conceptual and abstract thinking. Selection decisions are made on the basis of an holistic assessment of all three criteria - appropriate work experience,
performance in previous studies and test performance.

The nine modules will be delivered over nine weeks in block release format.

You will be required to attend class for three days a week, once a month, over a period of nine months.

Start date: 18 March 2024

DELIVERY SITE

• ONSITE course delivery is at the Wits School of Governance located in Parktown, Johannesburg.
• OFFSITE deliveries are offered subject to the commitment of a minimum numbers of participants being registered for the course.
• ONLINE delivery will require the participant to have connectivity and devices.
• Please note that travel and accommodation will be at the cost of the students’ respective organisations.