Protesting Putin or protecting rights? Media reflections on reflective student activism

This paper considers new challenges for Russian universities and the state, including flourishing and widespread corruption, politicization and state pressure, and student activism, and hypothesizes on how these three may be linked. To do so, this paper uses systematic research of media accounts from 2007 to 2012 in order to investigate student activism and its possible links with corruption and university politicization. This paper develops a theoretical extension that explains the corruption and coercion mechanism as applied to student activism, and places emphasis on higher education corruption and state pressure applied to universities. This study concludes that students are more interested in fighting for their economic rights and fulfilment of contractual obligations by the universities, while remaining politically inactive. This is normal for modern Russian society, where market reforms in higher education gain momentum, while democratic changes in the country remain very slow.     

Deregulation and the decline of public administration teaching in the UK

In 1991 eight polytechnics offered a BA in public administration while five universities provided the degree with either public or social policy. Currently, no higher education institution in Britain offers a BA degree solely entitled 'public administration'. The subject area is, however, offered in 16 higher education institutions under a variety of names that include, in any order, the words 'public', 'management', 'policy' and 'administration'. This paper analyses the reasons for the transformation during the 1990s in undergraduate courses for the public sector. It is argued that these changes do not so much derive from academics, employers or students taking on board an enthusiasm for new public management but are as much the consequences of deregulation of student choice and an expansion in student numbers that has not been matched in financial terms. The consequence has been to increasingly move this sector towards business and management teaching geared to private sector interests and away from its more political and social science roots.     

The Educational and Professional Goals of International Students in Public Service Degrees

International student enrollment in public service degrees such as Public Administration in the United States has grown rapidly. Harnessing this growth to improve the knowledge and expertise of employees in public service is a vital opportunity. However, our survey of public service schools shows that international students perceive an extensive lack of support with financial and linguistic challenges. Furthermore, schools practice little performance evaluation concerning international student experience. We conclude that schools collect more data on international students and communicate better information about programs to improve services and ensure that students know accurately what to expect from their overseas education.     

Flipping burgers or flipping pages? Student employment and academic attainment in post-Soviet Latvia

Latvian higher education has undergone a dramatic transition since 1991. This study employs a survey of nearly 1000 social science students studying in 13 different institutions in Latvia to consider the impact of the increase in the number of students who are working while studying. Evidence indicates employment has a strong and significant negative impact on school performance, and the negative impact increases as weekly hours worked increase. This manifests itself through reduced class attendance and reduced time spent in independent study. Finally, we find that the probability of student employment is most significantly affected by the availability of financial aid, gender, ethnicity, and age.     

Double Penalty in Returns to Education: Informality and Educational Mismatch in the Colombian Labour Market

This article examines the returns to education taking into consideration the existence of educational mismatches in the formal and informal employment of a developing country. Results show that the returns of surplus, required and deficit years of schooling are different in the two sectors. Moreover, they suggest that these returns vary along the wage distribution, and that the pattern of variation differs for formal and informal workers. In particular, informal workers face not only lower returns to their education, but suffer a second penalty associated with educational mismatches that puts them at a greater disadvantage compare to their formal counterparts.     

Is School the Best Route to Skills? Returns to Vocational School and Vocational Skills in Egypt

This paper tests the assumption that formal education is the best route to job skills. The returns to formal vocational secondary schooling are compared to the returns to acquiring skills outside the education system, such as undertaking an apprenticeship, for male wage workers in Egypt. A unique longitudinal dataset with information on schooling and skills allows for causal inference about returns by comparing siblings. For recent cohorts, the estimated returns to formal vocational secondary education are the same as attaining no formal education. However, the returns to skills obtained outside of formal education are substantial.     

Credit access,human capital and class structure mobility

This article examines the impact of microenterprise credit programmes on class structure mobility in developing countries. It develops a model that endogenously generates an eight‐fold class structure. Class membership is determined by optimal choice of labour activity, which is a function of access to credit and human capital endowments. Predictions from the model suggest that better access to credit will foster upward class mobility among self‐employed entrepreneurs, and that this upward class mobility will be accentuated among entrepreneurs with high levels of human capital. Theoretical predictions from the model are compared with data on class structure mobility collected first‐hand in western Guatemala. Empirical results show that upward class structure mobility increases substantially with access to credit, and also suggest that the combined effect of innate entrepreneurial ability and credit access has a greater impact on upward class structure mobility than the interaction between formal schooling and credit access.     

Teacher Gender,Student Gender,and Primary School Achievement: Evidence from Ten Francophone African Countries

Using an exceptionally rich, standardised education assessment dataset comprising over 1800 primary schools and 31,000 grade six students from 10 francophone Western and Central African countries, this study analyses the relationship between teacher gender, student gender, and student achievement. Findings indicate that, for girls, being taught by a female teacher increases math and reading performance. For boys, however, teacher gender has no effect. Similar, but less strong effects are also found for subject appreciation. Moreover, traditional academic gender stereotypes remain prevalent among both male and female teachers. Our findings suggest that hiring more female teachers in the region can reduce educational gender gaps without hurting boys.     

Pakistan's informal sector

This study reviews the main features of Pakistan's informal sector. The data on the informal sector, compiled from censuses and sample surveys in one major city (Rawalpindi), suggest that both real wages and employment have grown in the informal sector. The seeming paradox of real wage growth in a labor surplus economy is explained by real wage growth in both agriculture and large‐scale manufacturing, both of which were made possible by Pakistan's growth performance during the 1960s. The differences in wages between the formal and informal sector, after adjusting for age and education, are quite small, a reflection of high labor mobility between the two sectors.     

Conflict resolution classrooms to careers: an emergent theory of change with implications for a strategy in peace education

Peace education provides for the development of knowledge, skills, and dispositions appropriate to effective peacebuilding. Therefore, the development of curriculum in degree programs which builds bridges by which students in conflict resolution/peace studies classrooms may cross over to the field of conflict transformation and peacebuilding may properly be thought of as within the sphere of peace education. This paper describes an emerging theory of change in the context of the peace education offered by a graduate and undergraduate program of conflict resolution. It is argued that employability exists at the nexus of student skills and attributes, and the demands of a labor market which a partnership between experienced practitioners and academics has a responsibility to inform and shape through outreach, education, practice, evaluation, research, and publication.     

Structural and Behavioural Characteristics of Informal Service Employment: Evidence from a Survey in New Delhi

This article argues that at least two distinct categories within the informal sector - informal services and informal manufacturing - exhibit different structural and behavioural characteristics. While some segments of informal manufacturing may indeed be 'dynamic' as noted by some recent studies, the hypothesis is tested for the informal service employment on the basis of a survey by the author in New Delhi, India. It examines investment, earnings, returns to human capital, socio economic characteristics and scope for upward mobility of informal service employment. It finds formal education does not explain differences in earnings in the sample but background characteristics do; earnings in the informal service sector are neither the lowest in the economy nor are they comparable to wages in the urban formal unskilled sector, when differences between migrants and non-migrants are taken into account. On the basis of these results, the paper reflects on the nature of growth and structural change in the Indian economy and draws some analytical and policy implications.     

SHIFTING REALITIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION: TODAY'S BUSINESS MODEL THREATENS OUR ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE

ABSTRACT

American institutions of higher education have an excellent reputation throughout the world as first rate academic centers that do an exceptional job of preparing young citizens for their future roles of leadership in business, government and our society. Colleges and universities are expected to develop young learners by teaching them knowledge, skills and above all, the ability to engage in critical thinking. This article opines that our universities' outstanding reputations are challenged by the unique pressures upon administrators, faculty, and students to prepare those in our classes for their careers. This treating of the student body as customers has lessened the rigor of the curricula and teaching methods. The authors present several recommendations for improvement of our liberal arts schools in today's rapidly changing world community.     

LIBERALIZATION AND THE PUBLIC SECTOR: THE PRE-EMINENT ROLE OF GOVERNMENTS IN THE 'SALE' OF HIGHER EDUCATION ABROAD

Much recent scholarship concerning liberalization has emphasized the role of regulatees, rather than governments, in promoting liberalization. This article examines such scholarship in the light of an important development in the British and French public sectors—the creation of new agencies (the Education Counselling Service and EduFrance) to 'sell' British and French higher education to potential international students. The new agencies attempted to induce two things: competition amongst higher education institutions for the recruitment of international students from developed and emerging economy countries, and the commodification of these students. This article shows that, contrary to existing theories of liberalization, governments were pre-eminent in pushing forward this liberalization, while higher education institutions attempted to hold it back.     

Relationships of control and relationships of engagement: how educator intentions intersect with student experiences of restorative justice

The practice and popularity of restorative justice (RJ) in education has been growing in recent years. RJ can be understood in dramatically different ways by those implementing it. For some, RJ is about creating an environment of and for student engagement that challenges traditional systems of discipline and facilitates learning. For others, RJ is simply another tool for solidifying compliance and meting out punishment, albeit in a kinder, gentler way. This comparative case study focused on the use of RJ in one school in Scotland and one in Canada, exploring the intersection between educator intentions and student experiences. I determined that the key element is not the implementation of RJ, but the school’s predominant relational objectives. In a school where relational objectives are of social control, RJ is utilized to strengthen that control. Where the relational objectives are of social engagement, RJ is utilized to strengthen that engagement. RJ in schools is a window into what is most fundamental to students: relationships. The study argues that RJ, by itself, does not guarantee certain qualities of relationship, but it does allow us to examine those qualities and ask questions of how school relationships are used to engage and/or control students.     

The Transition from Education to Employment Abroad: The Experiences of Young People from Poland

This article examines the subject of the transition from education to the labour market among young people moving directly from education in Poland to first jobs abroad. With free labour mobility in the European Union (EU), there are now more options for transitions into adulthood, including working abroad. This study uses mainly qualitative empirical material with some contextual quantitative data to examine the characteristics of young people who opted for a first job abroad, how they made their transitions from education to the foreign labour market, and the impact of their first jobs abroad on their subsequent occupational paths after returning home.     

‘I Know My Rights,but Am I Better Off?’: Institutions and Disability in Uganda

Uganda is internationally recognised for both its legal and constitutional provisions for people with disabilities, and the presence of disabled persons’ organisations that provide informal advocacy and support. Using a unique dataset of 579 Ugandans with physical disabilities, we develop a conceptual framework on social capital to investigate the factors correlated with knowledge of formal institutions that target disability. In examining whether this knowledge results in higher incomes we find that gender matters. A woman’s education and membership of external networks are correlates of knowledge; higher levels of this knowledge are associated with substantially higher levels of income.     

The Effectiveness of Inputs in Primary Education: Insights from Recent Student Surveys for Sub-Saharan Africa

With SACMEQ and PASEC there are now two large data bases available on student achievement, socio-economic background and school and teacher characteristics in both anglophone and francophone sub-Saharan Africa. A joint analysis of PASEC and SACMEQ in a common education production function framework allows us to estimate the impact of educational inputs on student achievement in 21 sub-Saharan African countries and to compare our results with those of earlier empirical studies for education systems in Africa and other world regions. In our analysis we focus on school equipment, teacher quality and class organisation. The issue of teacher and student incentives cannot be adequately addressed with the given data. Our results are based on a traditional retrospective analysis of student achievement in PASEC and SACMEQ countries. In contrast to the ‘nothing works’ result from most industrialized countries' studies we find robust positive correlations of achievement test scores and the possession of textbooks and negative correlations with teaching in shifts. The most striking result is the weak or even absent correlation of achievement test scores and teacher education and professional training. However, some differences between francophone and anglophone education systems can be observed in this context if differences in the sampling methodology are duly taken into account.     

Training transformational leaders: a call for practicing empowerment in the classroom

This article is based on the premise that organizations are in dire need of transformational leaders who will imbue them with the values and practices necessary to survive and grow in the 21st century. Unfortunately, our educational system is not doing very much to prepare our students to successfully perform this transformational role. We suggest that the reason for this deficiency lies in the fact that too many faculty practice traditional bureaucratic pedagogies which neither models nor develops the values and skills students need to become transformational leaders. Furthermore, the extensive use of these practices serves to limit student involvement in the teaching-learning process and decreases student motivation to perform high quality work. Therefore, this article will discuss how faculty can model transformational leadership by empowering their students. We have found that this approach creates stimulating classes which increase student feelings of ownership, self-efficacy, and motivation. Moreover this experience helps prepare students to be the transformational leaders our world so desperately needs.     

Inconsistency between educational attainment and literacy: The case of Russia

From the moment when wide spread of large scale assessments in sociology and economics began, the most commonly used indicators of peoples’ qualifications are the number of years spent in education and the possession of a high school/college/university diploma. But what if these formal indicators are unreliable under certain conditions and do not reflect actual literacy and competency of people? This article, drawing on data from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), questions accuracy of the basic educational indicators in Russia. There is a linear relationship between the possession of a formal graduation diploma and the measurement of PIAAC literacy of the able-bodied population in OECD countries, including the Eastern European ones. However, the analysis shows that in Russia there is an inconsistency between literacy and formal educational status. This fact in itself casts doubt on the effectiveness of formal education indicators in Russia. The social implications resulting from this inconsistency become apparent through an international comparison of research results. These ill effects have been documented in the areas of employment, education and social reproduction and in the social self-awareness of the Russian people.     

Factors impeding credit use in small‐farm households in Bolivia

Sample survey data show few Bolivian small‐farm households using credit, but most would like to borrow from formal market institutions. A theoretical framework is developed to formulate testable hypotheses to identify factors that inhibit credit use. Major impediments to borrowing are scale of operations, as measured by amount of useable land, and borrower's transactions costs that arise from loan paperwork, use of Indian language, remoteness from market, little education and low degree of market integration. When farmers with these characteristics borrow they tend to use informal market sources because of the lower transactions costs compared to those of formal market lenders. The policy implication is if formal market lenders are to reach more farmers they must lower transactions costs.