Public Administration

This twelve-month, three-semester program is competency-focused, meaning it will deliver the specific knowledge, skills, abilities and values that professionals need to build successful careers in Canada’s public sector broadly defined. This includes the core departments within the City of Toronto, Ontario and Canadian governments, their associated agencies, boards and commissions, and transfer bodies like school boards, hospitals and post-secondary education institutions.

A focus on competencies will allow students to customize the public administration program to their individual learning needs. Instructors will use challenge exams at the beginning of each course to assess each student’s level of proficiency in course competencies. Students who prove proficient (i.e. based on prior learning and/or professional experience) will be given credit for that learning and be allowed to focus on those areas where proficiency is still required.

Students will take sixteen courses over three semesters. Two courses in Semester 1 focus on foundational knowledge of Canada’s public sector (like the constitutional framework and the practice of parliamentary government). The remaining courses focus on five major areas of public sector activity: program and service delivery, business and financial planning, communications, human resource management and public policy. The program culminates in a 320-hour experiential learning project that gives students the chance to apply the competencies gained in the program to a specific workplace setting.

Courses will be delivered in a variety of formats to ensure that students can maintain a healthy school-work-life balance. Semester 1 begins with a one-week intensive orientation to Canadian government designed to give students, regardless of employment experience or educational background, the foundational knowledge needed to succeed in the program. The in-class components of hybrid classes are delivered between 7 a.m. and 8:15 a.m. at the Humber Downtown campus – in time for students to be at work by 9 a.m. – with an online component delivered asynchronously. There will be three hybrid classes in Semester 1, three in Semester 2 and one in Semester 3. The online courses will be delivered both asynchronously (three in Semester 1 and two in each of Semesters 2 and 3) and one synchronously (one in Semester 2).

The program includes an experiential learning project that allows students to apply what they’ve learned to real-world problems facing Canadians and their governments today, including those related to the environment, housing, health care and the economy. 

The public administration program will help working professionals advance their careers by providing what they need to accelerate a promotion in their current position, transfer to a different area, division or department, or move to a different government entirely.  The program also gives students without professional experience what they need to start a career in Canada’s public sector, including career development support and professional networking opportunities.   

Public administration graduates have been employed federally by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, and Environment Canada, provincially by the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, and Ministry of Education. Locally, graduates have been employed by the City of Toronto’s City Planning, Economic Development, and Culture divisions.  Graduates’ job titles have included customer service representative, communications analyst, policy advisor, program advisor, financial analyst and research co-ordinator.