International Journal of Educational Development最新文献

Since its onset in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has globally disrupted school operations, leading to a shift to some form of homeschooling arrangements. After two years, in March 2022, the government of Malaysia officially reopened all schools, ending its homeschooling program. In this paper, we exploit a purposefully designed, nationwide, cross-sectional survey of government-owned primary and secondary schools in Malaysia to document student learning experiences during the early months of the home-to-school transition. Our empirical analysis and choice of indicators is guided by a conceptual framework that distinguishes between two competing hypotheses related to school reopening experiences: resumption vs transitional disruption. We find that 59 % of secondary and 72 % of primary level students report that they are happy to be back in school. School reopening also coincides with a significant reduction in educational-related worries (e.g., concerns over dropout, learning loss, and loss of interest in study) and indices of negative emotions (i.e., feelings of being tense, depressed, and restless), particularly among secondary school students. More importantly, those satisfied upon return to school report a statistically significant reduction in worries related to learning loss. These correlations support the resumption hypothesis. Yet our data highlights an important puzzle: Even after school reopening, one-third of students report that they do not learn more, at least one-fifth report a struggle to catch up on studies, and up to 40 % are concerned about learning loss. The majority of learners additionally report not receiving more support from teachers and parents. Recipients of public aid as well as private (i.e., parental) support report being happy about school reopening and are less likely to report “not learning more.” We conclude by discussing these somewhat paradoxical findings and the need for remedial measures beyond financial support for struggling learners to minimize post school reopening, transitional disruptions.

This paper examines the life trajectories of low-income children who, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, were integrated into Saint George’s College, an elite private school in Santiago, Chile. Utilizing primarily qualitative methods, this study focuses on the retrospective experiences and perceptions of former students. It investigates the outcomes for low-income students who attended Saint George’s as part of a socio-economic integration program, which has inspired both a film and recent policy debates on reforming Chile’s national school choice system. Findings indicate a significant perceived impact on educational attainment and social mobility for former low-income students, primarily through transformed aspirations, as well as positive experiences for elite students entailing broadened social perspectives, empathy, and greater commitment to equity in social and political spheres. The study discusses theoretical contributions and policy implications related to aspirations formation, the social composition of schools, and the role of social integration in elite educational settings.

Policymakers continue to contend with the challenge of measuring and classifying schools concerning educational resources, which makes it difficult for policy development and implementation towards efficient allocation of the scarce resources available to education managers. This study, therefore, sought to estimate the extent of educational resource deprivation among Basic Schools in Ghana and find out its effect on the delivery of quality education. The study used data from the Annual School Census (ASC Data) (2015/16–2018/19) and Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) pass rates (2015/16–2018/19) The findings revealed that the extent of educational resource deprivation has improved from 45.1 % in 2015/16–35.4 % in 2018/19 with higher regional disparities. The incidence of deprivation has also improved from a highest 83.6 % to a lowest 77.9 % while the intensity of the deprivation in Ghanaian basic schools changed from 49.6 % to 46.7 % with the northern sector of the country, especially the Brong Ahafo Region recording highest levels of deprivation. Again, it was found that quality basic education as evident in performance in BECE is determined by the availability of library facilities and ICT infrastructure, the nature of school building, supervision, teacher-pupil ratio, and availability of professional teachers. The study recommends the adoption of the Multidimensional Education Resource Deprivation Index (MERDI) as a guiding index in Ghana's educational resource distribution. Also, the Ghana Education Service should prioritise the deployment of quality teachers and the distribution of textbooks and other reading materials.

In the highly centralized education system, national curriculum revisions are significant because they fundamentally change the direction and nature of schooling across the country. However, any new reform will inevitably be met by opposition and resistance from various stakeholders. While the notion of increased autonomy and empowerment is predicated on teachers’ participation, in practice, teachers are often unwilling to accept or even oppose curriculum changes. Using South Korea's recent national curriculum revision in 2022 as reference, this study draws attention to the fact that despite the revision of the national curriculum, teachers’ curriculum implementation has not changed as much as expected, and even show antipathy or resistance. Resistance in this context does not mean simple opposition but rather a phenomenon that involves and intervenes in the interpretive process of new policies, and the politics of the society that surrounds individuals and schools. I argue that Korean primary and secondary teachers’ reactions to the new national curriculum reflect complex orientations towards the curriculum and resistance to its revision, shaped by personal, organizational, and sociocultural contexts. With implications of the analysis for understanding teachers’ responses to national curriculum, I conclude that we need more pay attention to the dilemma as an ambivalent emotion teachers experience requires us to consider the dynamics when the national curriculum is implemented.

We argue and demonstrate that human capital services—health, education and behavioral health—suffer from underutilized human capital. Healthcare providers, teachers, mothers and poor people have significant funds of knowledge about how to improve human capital that they do not use. This problem is not unique to Africa, but it is particularly pernicious in that setting due to historically low state capabilities. We demonstrate measurement methods that establish this gap and discuss approaches to research and policy that could be used to close the gap.

This study assesses how various types and modes of teacher qualification affect students' math grades. Using data from 9th-grade public classes from Brazilian standardized tests, we categorized teachers into groups based on their qualification. We applied inverse probability weighting, derived from propensity scores estimated by a Generalized Boosting Model with multiple treatments, to account for other teachers' and students' characteristics when evaluating student performance. Results showed that teachers who graduated in mathematics through distance education had classes with higher grades than teachers with other academic backgrounds or without higher education, particularly in rural schools and among students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. Moreover, no statistically significant differences were observed in the performance of students taught by teachers trained in mathematics through distance education as opposed to traditional face-to-face training. These findings suggest that prioritizing subject-specific teacher qualification is essential for improving math education outcomes, with distance learning being a viable option, especially in schools facing socioeconomic challenges.

This study investigates the relationship between higher education and entry into the labor market in Ethiopia, with a focus on gender and job opportunities for engineering graduates. It uses a tracer study design to collect and analyze quantitative and qualitative data from 158 engineering graduates, 18 employers, and 16 higher education teachers. The findings suggest that higher education study conditions, curriculum relevance, and acquisition of employment skills influenced opportunities for engineering graduates to find employment shortly after graduation. In contrast to much of the existing research, our small sample of 31 female engineering graduates were not disadvantaged in comparison to males when they moved into employment immediately following graduation. Recommendations are suggested for improving the quality and relevance of engineering education to address gender gaps and challenges in higher education and employment. Future research to substantiate the findings in this exploratory study is also needed.

This study provides lower-bound estimates of inequality in educational opportunity from 2020 to 2021—during the COVID-19 pandemic in Thailand. We also analyze the relationship between school- and local-specific characteristics and inequality in educational opportunity. Using school dropout status as a student’s outcome, our study reveals that children’s and parental characteristics were the most relevant circumstances at the primary level. However, at the secondary level, access to computers and the internet were more important circumstances contributing to inequality in educational opportunity. The estimated inequality in educational opportunity in 2021 is slightly higher than that in 2020, indicating an increase in inequality from circumstances beyond children’s control. School quality and local social and economic factors could be potential drivers to improve equality in educational opportunity in Thailand.

Since December 2018, Sudan's education system has been in turmoil due to a youth uprising against Omar Al-Bashir regime, leading to the closure of schools and universities for about ten months. Although a transitional government briefly restored educational activities in late 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic soon caused another six-month-long closure. Political instability continued post-pandemic, with conflicts between military and civilian factions within the transitional government leading to repeated educational disruptions and protests. By 2022, ongoing turmoil had caused significant academic delays. An internal conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) erupted into violence on April 15, 2023, devastating educational institutions in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. The prolonged conflict has left educators unpaid and forced many into low-skilled jobs. With the war ongoing and schools and universities closed for over a year, Sudan's educational future remains uncertain. Achieving a ceasefire and promoting dialogue between rivals are crucial to addressing the root causes of the conflict. Investing in education is essential for rebuilding the system and securing a brighter future for Sudanese youth.

This study uses a theoretical perspective known as organizational institutionalism to explain the higher test scores observed among private school students in Nepal. We argue that the differing “institutional charters” of public and private schools in Nepal result in different forms of school governance, external monitoring, and instructional practice in public and private schools and that these organizational features of schooling affect students’ learning outcomes. Empirical analyses presented in the paper show that public and private schools in Nepal do show expected differences in school governance, external monitoring, and instructional practice, but that only the instructional practice variable positively affects student achievement.