The Department of Public Administration, which is now the Institute of Administrative Sciences (IAS), was established in 1962 after the government of Pakistan decided to move the postgraduate program of Public Administration, first of its kind in the country, to the University of the Punjab from the University of Karachi. The Institute of Business and Public Administration (IBPA), which later became IBA, was established at the University of Karachi in 1959 with the technical assistance provided by the U.S. AID Mission to Pakistan. The IBPA started two separate postgraduate degrees in Business Administration and Public Administration. However Public Administration program was discontinued without producing any graduates.
The newly established Department of Public Administration (DPA) of the University of the Punjab continued to receive technical assistance under a U.S. AID funded project. Under this project, a team of professors from the University of Southern California (USC) under the headship of Professor Dr. Don R. Larson developed the academic programs and local faculty members were inducted who were later sent to USC for doctoral studies. This US trained faculty, after the departure of American professors, on completion of the U.S. AID’s project, led and managed the Department of Public Administration in the later years, a tradition which still continues. The name of the department was later changed to the Department of Administrative Science.
Initially, the department started offering two M.A. programs: 1) M.A. in Public Administration for fresh graduates; and 2) M.A. in Administrative Science for in-service individuals. In 1971, a third program M.A. in Business Administration was launched which was the second postgraduate program in business administration in the entire country. However after one year, this program was transferred to a newly established Department of Business Administration which is now the Institute of Business Administration.
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