Education

While some governments in Sub-Saharan Africa have abolished tuition to achieve universal primary education (UPE), few studies have examined the impacts of the UPE policy beyond school enrolment. This study estimates the impact of the UPE policy in Uganda on overall primary education attainments by using data including 940 rural households. We find that UPE has decreased delayed enrolments and increased grade completion rates up to the fifth grade and its effects are especially large among girls in poor households. Yet, schools in Uganda still face further challenges in terms of low internal efficiency and the unequal quality of education. r

The elimination of school fees from public primary education under the Free Primary Education (FPE) Policy in Kenya in 2003 has increased enrollment by 22 percent in the first year alone. Some experts, however, suggest that the FPE has reduced the quality of education in public schools and increased the number of students who transfer from public to private schools. To obtain a better understanding of the school choice in Kenya, we estimate the school choice between public and private primary schools and track primary school children over a period of three years to identify the factors associated with school transfers. We find that the proportion of children attending private schools indeed increased from 4.8 to 12.2 percent, especially among children in relatively wealthy households, from 2004 to 2007. We also find that the school quality, measured by the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education exam score at the school level, has a positive impact on the choice of private schools. Regarding school transfers, we not only find transfers from public to private schools but also between public schools. The children in relatively wealthy households have a higher probability of transferring to private schools than children in poorer households. Maintaining the quality of education among public primary schools under the FPE Policy is an urgent policy agenda for the Kenyan government as well as other governments that have adopted free primary education policies in order to enhance the equity of the entire education system.

It is widely acknowledged that the private costs of education occupy a substantial part of the overall education cost and thus they have implications for quality and equity in education. The case of Japan demonstrates that access to basic education at junior high school level is unequal and inequitable when considering private costs of education borne within and outside the school system. It was also found that household spending on supplementary education in public schools is likely to be determined by local implementation of education reforms. Current education reform with its absence of financial and technical support to schools under the guise of deregulation does not seem to generate good levels of choice nor does it seem to sustain quality and equity in education.

The elimination of school fees from public primary education under the Free Primary Education (FPE) Policy in Kenya in 2003 has increased enrollment by 22 percent in the first year alone. Some experts, however, suggest that the FPE has reduced the quality of education in public schools and increased the number of students who transfer from public to private schools. To obtain a better understanding of the school choice in Kenya, we estimate the school choice between public and private primary schools and track primary school children over a period of three years to identify the factors associated with school transfers. We find that the proportion of children attending private schools indeed increased from 4.8 to 12.2 percent, especially among children in relatively wealthy households, from 2004 to 2007. We also find that the school quality, measured by the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education exam score at the school level, has a positive impact on the choice of private schools. R...

Liberal education or liberal arts education is perhaps one of the most important concepts in the British and American higher education systems. But from a historical perspective, the term "liberal education" is elusive and has changed meaning many times (Shen, 2016). One former president of an American liberal arts college even suggested "dropping the word liberal altogether" because its meaning is so unclear (Ferrall, 2011, p.8). Nonetheless, everyone would agree that liberal education is non-professional education and that it has traditionally been considered as a distinctive feature of these two higher education systems, especially the American one (Joseph Ben-David, 1980). For a long period, there has been no shortage of research on liberal education in the U.K. and the U.S. Nevertheless, in recent years, liberal arts education reform outside the U.S. and the U.K. has also received a signifi cant amount of attention (Peterson, 2012). This book makes its unique contribution by analyzing the development of liberal education theory and practice in East Asia as a whole. The book has very rich content with a total of 15 chapters; however, due to space constraints, this review highlights only some key points. For instance, in chapter 2, Akira Tachikawa analyzes the history of liberal education from the perspective of curriculum development, reviewing the paradigm shift from logic to humanities and then to science and mathematics. In chapter 3, Rui Yang looks into the model of liberal education from both Eastern and Western perspectives. He points out that the West's critical thinking and the East's cultural traditions are compatible in some respects. In his chapter, Yang shares with us his strong opinion that higher education in East Asia needs to combine Western traditions with its own. East Asia must draw from its own history. Chapter 4 presents the case of Handong Global University in South Korea. Its experiment in liberal education is to let students choose their majors upon entering sophomore year. The university is an elite university ranking 10th among the 400 universities in South Korea.

In the international sphere, gender equality is primarily discussed in relation to the gender parity index (GPI), a female to male ratio of enrollment. This paper attempts to adopt a wider scope of gender equality that includes continuous learning and achievement. By using the data from 306 primary schools in rural Senegal, collected by the Japan International Cooperation Agency Research Institute (JICA-RI), this paper examined school factors that affect the gender gaps in internal efficiency and learning achievement by considering policy input and the environment at the school level. The results show that the existence of a school management committee (“CGE”), is associated with lower dropout rates for both boys and girls and that the amount of financial contribution made by a CGE is correlated with fewer gender gaps in the number of dropouts and the repetition rate. We also found that providing parents with a periodic report on students’ attendance and learning achieveme nts as we...

The article attempted a theoretical comparative analysis on educational evaluation methodologies to examine the ways in which educational evaluation can lead to effective education policies and planning in developing countries. Three major surveys, namely, international student assessment, school survey, and household survey were compared and contrasted and the missing links were identified. It was found that the existing international student assessments have defects in its target groups and data collection method, while school survey and household survey also overlook a comprehensive focus on both supply and demand sides of education. The results of these surveys occasionally confront discrepancies, especially in developing countries where a number of out-ofschool children and dropouts exist. Thus, a comprehensive assessment of these surveys is essential. Furthermore, qualitative research would be required for a complementary analysis for inferences from the quantitative data, particularly for critical issues such as non-enrollment and dropout.

The number of private schools has increased by more than four times since the introduction of the Free Primary Education (FPE) policy in 2003 in Kenya. With the help of panel data obtained from rural Kenya, we observed that the proportion of children attending private primary schools increased from 4.6% in 2004 to 11.5% in 2007. The estimation results suggest that parents react to the quality of public education, as measured by the pupil-teacher ratios of public schools, by attending private schools and transferring to different schools. Their reaction also depends on the wealth of households and gender.

Universal Primary Education (UPE) policy in the form of fee abolition has become popular in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) since the mid 1990s in order to achieve Education for All (EFA). Even after learning from the past, the current UPE policy is devoid of analytical studies on its impact and challenges beyond school enrollment. This paper is an attempt to make a comparative analysis on UPE in four countries, namely, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, and Uganda, to identify common and unique themes and to examine how these seemingly similar policies are responding to the capacity and needs of each country. The results show that effective policy implementation would require considerable consultation with key stakeholders and a baseline survey that will enable systematic implementation and consideration of equity. Mutual accountability and a responsibility mechanism between the government and parents/communities is also a key to the sustainability of the UPE policy.

PurposeThis research explores the impact of the locally grown strategies for learning support, as a positive deviance (PD) study, during the COVID-19 pandemic in rural Uganda.Design/methodology/approachThe researchers employed a randomized control trial (RCT) as an original design whereby 50 schools received a full package of SMS and WhatsApp peer groups of head teachers, 50 schools received SMS only and another 50 served as a control group. As an analytical method, this study adopted a difference-in-difference (DID) model to analyze the impact of the radio talk shows promoted through SMS followed by discussion among WhatsApp peer groups. The data collected in June 2021 and February 2022 were used due to the COVID-19-related data limitation of the baseline survey collected in 2019.FindingsThe authors found that the local radio talk shows as a PD intervention had a humble impact on preventing pupils’ dropout during the school closures for two years in Uganda. However, the authors did...

Liberal education or liberal arts education is perhaps one of the most important concepts in the British and American higher education systems. But from a historical perspective, the term "liberal education" is elusive and has changed meaning many times (Shen, 2016). One former president of an American liberal arts college even suggested "dropping the word liberal altogether" because its meaning is so unclear (Ferrall, 2011, p.8). Nonetheless, everyone would agree that liberal education is non-professional education and that it has traditionally been considered as a distinctive feature of these two higher education systems, especially the American one (Joseph Ben-David, 1980). For a long period, there has been no shortage of research on liberal education in the U.K. and the U.S. Nevertheless, in recent years, liberal arts education reform outside the U.S. and the U.K. has also received a signifi cant amount of attention (Peterson, 2012). This book makes its unique contribution by analyzing the development of liberal education theory and practice in East Asia as a whole. The book has very rich content with a total of 15 chapters; however, due to space constraints, this review highlights only some key points. For instance, in chapter 2, Akira Tachikawa analyzes the history of liberal education from the perspective of curriculum development, reviewing the paradigm shift from logic to humanities and then to science and mathematics. In chapter 3, Rui Yang looks into the model of liberal education from both Eastern and Western perspectives. He points out that the West's critical thinking and the East's cultural traditions are compatible in some respects. In his chapter, Yang shares with us his strong opinion that higher education in East Asia needs to combine Western traditions with its own. East Asia must draw from its own history. Chapter 4 presents the case of Handong Global University in South Korea. Its experiment in liberal education is to let students choose their majors upon entering sophomore year. The university is an elite university ranking 10th among the 400 universities in South Korea.

Insung Jung T e a c h e r T r a i n i n g C o ll a b o ra ti o n T e c h n o l o g y I n n o v a t i o n s C l a s s r o o m s C a s e S t u d i e s Learning This case study and others in the series have been supported through a grant from The World Bank's infoDev program to the Institute of International Education.

This study identifies a set of competencies displayed in the successful distance learner. It employed a three-phased approach. Phase I, conducted to develop an initial list of competencies, comprised Behavioral Event Interviews with nine successful distance learners. In Phase II, these competencies were reviewed, elaborated and categorized by seven distance education experts by means of semi-structured interviews. A list of 15 competencies in 5 clusters was then developed and in Phase III, these competencies and clusters were verified quantitatively by surveying 197 successful distance learners. The results reveal that all of these 15 competencies are critically important to, and commonly displayed by, successful distance learners and that of these, management skills is the most important. The findings and their implications are examined and the paper concludes with suggestions for further research into learner competencies.

This study aimed to investigate and classify faculty members’ instructional priorities for adopting OER. In-depth interview data were collected from 10 faculty members from different regions and analyzed with NVivo 10. The original supposition was that the well-established instructional priorities, effectiveness, efficiency, and appeal would apply. However, it was found that in adopting OER, these faculty members had four instructional priorities: effectiveness, efficiency, appeal, and extension. Effectiveness was the most important consideration, followed by extension, appeal, and efficiency. Regional differences were also apparent. These findings were drawn upon to propose an elaborated model of instructional priorities for adopting OER.

Research indicates that distance education (DE) students regard learner support systems as the key element in quality provision. This study sought to identify the key concerns of Asian DE students regarding support provision in different types of DE and dual-mode providers and formulate a student support model which took account of gender issues. An online survey was conducted with 1,113 distance learners in Japan,

Japan and Korea have highly developed information and communications technology infrastructures and have recently reformed their higher education systems and encouraged e-transformation. However, Japanese universities have not embraced e-learning as wholeheartedly as their Korean counterparts. The paper concludes that this is due to governmental and institutional failure to develop a cogent vision and strategic plan for e-learning, to recognise the need for fundamental shifts in organisational cultures and structures and pedagogy and to provide training, funding, recognition and reward for such development. It attributes this to differences in the cultural perspectives, values and customs of the two countries' policy makers, managers and faculty members. The findings are seen to hold important lessons for other countries embarking on e-transformation.