International Journal of Educational Development最新文献

Government reforms such as the general education quality improvement program for equity are implemented to address concerns about educational inequality. However, studies advancing understanding of the patterns of gender inequality in achievement in conflict affected areas are rare. The purpose of this article is to examine patterns in gender inequality in General Secondary Education Certificate Examination results in Math, English, and Aptitude for 2021, 2022 and 2023 academic years in conflict affected areas. The data consist of achievement scores from 45 schools and a total of 32,528 students, obtained from the Education office of North Wollo Zone, Northeast Ethiopia. Using multilevel modeling, within- and between-school inequalities, achievement inequalities in gender, effects of teacher qualifications on achievement, and variations in gender-achievement relationships are examined. Student performance has been found to have consistently declined in the last two years in math, English and aptitude scores. On average, boys perform significantly higher than girls on these subjects consistently during the normal and conflict seasons. Inequality has decreased in conjunction with declining student performance, and inequalities due to school characteristics are much lower than inequalities due to student differences. School inequality declines in years of conflict compared to normal ones. The relationships between gender and achievement also vary statistically from school to school, with the conflict exacerbating existing inequalities. Based on the results, it is suggested that equity strategies should consider inequalities with declining student performance as opposed to conventional inequalities with high and low performing groups. Future research may isolate the effects of conflict and reforms in national testing procedures to account for gender inequalities.

Pursuing Sustainable Development Goal 4 has led to more children and youth accessing schooling than at any point in history. However, this expansion of provision has not been without workforce challenges. UNESCO modelling indicates a global shortfall of 44 million teachers by 2030. The challenge of having a sufficiently qualified school education workforce where it is needed is amplified in locations where affordable quality stock of housing is limited. With most of the world’s population urbanising, cities represent a new frontier in understanding the complexity of current and forthcoming teacher shortages, with significant public policy implications. Interventions aimed at individual workers, schools, or administrative boundaries have failed to arrest staff shortages as they are frequently applied too late or based on potential rather than realised data. This paper develops a novel measure, the Workforce Catchment Area (WFCA), and tests its applicability in the Australian city of Sydney. Analysis demonstrates that when integrated with housing and transportation costs it is possible to identify workforce distribution as a contributor to teacher shortages, and generate the data and evidence required by policy makers to set explicit policy goals and markers of success.

This study examines Kenya's Free Primary Education policy's long-term effects on intergenerational mobility (IM). Children are likely to achieve a higher level of education than their mothers and fathers, especially those whose parents had no education. Analyzing the 1985–1994 cohort identifies a 1–3 % shift in IM compared to the 1985–1989 cohort, primarily driven by the rise of parental schooling. Kenya shows significant IM; thus, the background does not solely determine one's future. Kenya has a rate of return similar to the global average. Parental education's impact seems limited, and a child's education alleviates poverty.

In this study, I evaluate adherence to Nigeria's Language of Instruction (LOI) policy, which mandates that primary school students be taught in indigenous language. Using multivariate regression analysis and data from round 6 of the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS6), I assessed disparities in adherence between school types (public and private schools) and location (urban/rural areas) and regions. The results reveal private schools exhibit lower implementation rates than public schools, while urban areas lag behind rural areas, and the southern region trails the north. This highlights the challenges of enforcing a uniform LOI policy in Nigeria's linguistically diverse setting. I also examine the relationship between LOI and literacy outcomes using regression and propensity score matching anaysis. Contrary to prevailing notion that teaching children in an indigenous language improves learning outcomes, my findings show that students taught in English outperformed their peers taught in indigenous languages. This departure from the norm underscores the need to reassess generalized conclusions derived from less lingustically diverse contexts, as they might not apply settings like Nigeria. It also calls for a nuanced understanding of how LOI influences learning outcomes in diverse contexts, emphasizing the importance of tailoring educational policies to local realities.

Environmental education provides people with the information they need to understand the causes and consequences of environmental issues, helping to promote positive attitudes toward nature. This paper uses a multivalued treatment effects model to evaluate the effects of a green school certification program on children’s pro-environmental behavior in Chile. Pro-environmental behavior is measured by knowledge, attitudes, and practices related to the consumption and disposal of plastics. Results evidence a positive effect of schools’ higher certification level on children’s plastic waste behavior. This effect seems stronger in practices where children have more decision-making power (e.g., packing a lunch box). The observed reverse effect when switching from basic to intermediate level of certification is in line with the potential non-linear effects of environmental education on pro-environmental behavior regarding the consumption and disposal of plastic. To improve the design of the program, it is important to redefine incentives in the certification system to differentiate better the benefits of reaching each level of environmental certification

This article considers the capital-related mechanisms behind parental activism against the Future School reform in South Korea, employing two theoretical frameworks: the parentocracy ideology and a Bourdieusian Analysis of Capital. The findings from discourse and social network (geolocational) analyses suggest that the activism is primarily driven by parents’ belief in meritocracy (testocracy), rooted in dominant educational norms. The efforts of parents to secure children's high exam scores indicate that parentocracy is a ‘continuum’ from meritocracy, rather than its next stage. The intersection of parental activism with capital and habitus highlights the complexities between parentocracy, meritocracy, and inequality, necessitating further analysis.

This personal narrative details the experiences of the founding director of the Institute of Education at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, reflecting on the development of educational precedents in post-Soviet Russia. The text outlines the establishment and rise of a few new innovative educational organizations, marking their impact through innovative practices rather than conventional policy reforms. The author argues that creating educational precedents—specific, practical examples of successful education strategies—is more resilient and effective than broad policy reforms or regulatory innovations. These precedents, once established, tend to endure through their intrinsic merits and practical success, despite shifting political landscapes and regulatory environments. The personal story underscores the complex interplay between educational innovation and political reaction in Russia.

We assessed the impact of compulsory kindergarten education on early teenage basic and functional literacy skills achievement using a large-scale natural experiment in the Philippines. In 2012, the Philippine government mandated compulsory kindergarten attendance for children aged five years or older prior to enrolling in the country’s basic education cycle. This created a non-trivial discontinuity in the propensity of kindergarten school attendance among different cohorts of children, which we exploited in this study. We find that children who were exposed to the policy were no more likely to be able to read, write and calculate by age 11–13 years when contrasted with comparable peers who were not compelled to attend kindergarten. However, those who were exposed to the policy were more likely to reach full functional literacy by early teen-age, which is likely due to dynamic complementarities in skills formation. While other children were able to eventually catch up with basic literacy skills in later childhood, children who attended kindergarten were more likely able to read and write before entering primary school, which likely allowed them to develop further skills later.

Despite their potential importance in the education production function, relatively little is known across contexts about the selection and training of school heads and supervisors in Africa. Based on available data and qualitative studies, most school heads and supervisors are selected from existing teaching ranks, receive little (if any) pre-service training, and are promoted based on factors other than their managerial ability.