Mexico's education reform presents a major challenge

Significance School results have long been weak in Mexico. While, as a proportion of GDP, education expenditure is significant, the system is inefficient, with a large proportion of the budget going to salaries, and militant teachers' unions exercising a stranglehold on the sector. Impacts The government will lose a huge amount of credibility if it allows education reform to be derailed in Oaxaca and Michoacan. The clampdown in Oaxaca may see the SNTE maintain a low profile, but it gives the CNTE no incentive to alter its violent tactics. Even if fully and successfully implemented, reforms will take several years to affect education standards noticeably.

Subject Importance of social media in the United Arab Emirates. Significance The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is among the most connected countries in the Middle East, with one of the highest rates of social media penetration. Compared with Western countries, UAE consumers are more likely to engage with brands and to be less worried about issues of privacy and tracking. The government engages in extensive monitoring, surveillance and censorship of social media and apps. Impacts Both global brands and local businesses have additional scope to develop social media strategies to capitalise on rising usage. Content with the status quo and tight monitoring will prevent activists from leveraging social media platforms to bring about change. Extraterritorial aspects of the cybercrime law could be applied to non-residents and travellers in transit. Non-renewal of visas could become a more common, low-profile way to exclude expatriates who transgress on social media.


Subject Education reform, labour supply and economic development in Cambodia. Significance Legislators passed the 2017 budget on November 22 with spending increases on vocational training and education. The government plans to move Cambodia into the upper-middle-income category (as defined by the World Bank) by 2030. This will require economic diversification, particularly away from agriculture and reliance on low-skilled garment manufacturing toward higher value-added activities such as automobile assembly and semiconductor production. This will need progressively more skilled labour, requiring education reforms. Impacts Improving Cambodia's skills base could attract more foreign investment and new jobs. US abandonment of the Trans-Pacific Partnership will reduce competition facing Cambodian manufacturing, for now. As economic opportunities develop, inward migration is possible, requiring urban and rural planning.


Significance Erdogan spoke ten days after instructing the education ministry to change the examination system for secondary-school entrance. His new-found interest in education quality, if sustained, could lead to some improvements if concrete action is taken on school budgeting, standards, teacher training and career structures. However, the government has focused rather on increasing the influence of religion in education, introducing extensive syllabus changes aimed at Turkey’s ideological transformation in line with Erdogan’s historical view and vision of society. Impacts There may be opportunities for the private sector to influence education policy. Policy in education as in other fields will continue to be ad hoc without long-term planning. The president may soon turn his attention to popular culture.


Kybernetes ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (7) ◽  
pp. 1262-1274 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shianghau Wu ◽  
Jiannjong Guo

Purpose In this paper, the authors aim to propose to find the variables that affect the Taiwanese people’s satisfaction level of the general public with the government. Design/methodology/approach The authors intend to utilize the Bayesian quantile regression to explore the variables that affect the satisfaction of the general public at specific quantiles of Taiwanese satisfaction with the government and rough set classification to explore key variables related to the satisfaction level. Then they make the comparison of the classification among the two methods to obtain the performance of the classification. Findings The experiment result shows the major factors which have the positive relationship with the people who have higher satisfaction level with the central government. These factors include satisfaction with the uncorrupted performance of the central government; the evaluation of household’s economic condition one year after the present time; the satisfaction with the Taiwanese central government’s measures on food safety and the satisfaction with the 12 years primary education reform. Originality/value The study’s originality hinges on the application of Bayesian quantile regression and rough set classification to the analysis of the Taiwanese satisfaction with the government. It offers more insights on the key variables related to different satisfaction level and the classification performance between the two methods.


Author(s):  
Stanley Ogoun ◽  
Godspower Anthony Ekpulu

The study interrogates the relationship between educational level and tax compliance in Nigeria. The study employs the ex post facto research design to ascertain how government investment in education enhances tax compliance. The study covers 17 years (2002-2018) for both tax revenue (a surrogate for tax compliance) and education expenditure (a surrogate for educational level). From the empirical results, the study concludes that there is a positive nexus between government expenditure on education and tax revenue. The study, therefore, recommends that as a matter of necessity, the government should invest more in the overall educational demand of her citizens not only from tax revenues but from other oil and non-oil sources. The governments, from the federal and state levels, should act as a matter national priority endeavour to meet up with the international budgetary benchmark allocation for education, as recommended by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in its Education for All (EFA) document 2000-2015. This will give Nigerians more access to quality education that would result in moving up the global ranking in HDI with its resultant benefits.


2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-102
Author(s):  
Sajeev Abraham George ◽  
Anurag C. Tumma

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to benchmark the operational and financial performances of the major Indian seaports to help derive useful insights to improve their performance. Design/methodology/approach A two-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) methodology has been used with the help of data collected on the 13 major seaports of India. The first stage of the DEA captured the operational efficiencies, while the second stage the financial performance. Findings A window analysis over a period of three years revealed that no port was able to score an overall average efficiency of 100 per cent. The study identified the better performing units among their peers in both the stages. The contrasting results of the study with the traditional operational and financial performance measures used by the ports helped to derive useful insights. Research limitations/implications The data used in the study were majorly limited to the available sources in the public domain. Also, the study was limited to the major seaports which are under the Government of India and no comparisons were carried out with other local or international ports. Practical implications There is a need to prioritize investments and improvement efforts where they are most needed, instead of following a generalized approach. Once the benchmark ports are identified, the port authorities and other relevant stakeholders should work in detail on the factors causing inefficiencies, for possible improvements in performance. Originality/value This paper carried out a two-stage DEA that helped to derive useful insights on operational efficiency and financial performance of the India seaports. A combination of the financial and operational parameters, along with a comparison of the DEA results with the traditional measures, provided a different perspective on the Indian seaport performance. Considering the scarcity of research papers reported in the literature on DEA-based benchmarking studies of seaports in the Indian context, it has the potential to attract future research in this field.


2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (4/5) ◽  
pp. 323-331
Author(s):  
Mohsen pakdaman ◽  
Raheleh akbari ◽  
Hamid reza Dehghan ◽  
Asra Asgharzadeh ◽  
Mahdieh Namayandeh

PurposeFor years, traditional techniques have been used for diabetes treatment. There are two major types of insulin: insulin analogs and regular insulin. Insulin analogs are similar to regular insulin and lead to changes in pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties. The purpose of the present research was to determine the cost-effectiveness of insulin analogs versus regular insulin for diabetes control in Yazd Diabetes Center in 2017.Design/methodology/approachIn this descriptive–analytical research, the cost-effectiveness index was used to compare insulin analogs and regular insulin (pen/vial) for treatment of diabetes. Data were analyzed in the TreeAge Software and a decision tree was constructed. A 10% discount rate was used for ICER sensitivity analysis. Cost-effectiveness was examined from a provider's perspective.FindingsQALY was calculated to be 0.2 for diabetic patients using insulin analogs and 0.05 for those using regular insulin. The average cost was $3.228 for analog users and $1.826 for regular insulin users. An ICER of $0.093506/QALY was obtained. The present findings suggest that insulin analogs are more cost-effective than regular insulin.Originality/valueThis study was conducted using a cost-effectiveness analysis to evaluate insulin analogs versus regular insulin in controlling diabetes. The results of study are helpful to the government to allocate more resources to apply the cost-effective method of the treatment and to protect patients with diabetes from the high cost of treatment.


2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 41-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Joyce

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyse the 2016 elections for Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) and to compare them with those that took place in 2012. It seeks to evaluate the background of the candidates who stood for office in 2016, the policies that they put forward, the results of the contests and the implications of the 2016 experience for future PCC elections. Design/methodology/approach This paper is based around several key themes – the profile of candidates who stood for election, preparations conducted prior to the contests taking place, the election campaign and issues raised during the contests, the results and the profile of elected candidates. The paper is based upon documentary research, making particular use of primary source material. Findings The research establishes that affiliation to a political party became the main route for successful candidates in 2016 and that local issues related to low-level criminality will dominate the future policing agenda. It establishes that although turnout was higher than in 2012, it remains low and that further consideration needs to be devoted to initiatives to address this for future PCC election contests. Research limitations/implications The research focusses on the 2016 elections and identifies a number of key issues that emerged during the campaign affecting the conduct of the contests which have a bearing on future PCC elections. It treats these elections as a bespoke topic and does not seek to place them within the broader context of the development of the office of PCC. Practical implications The research suggests that in order to boost voter participation in future PCC election contests, PCCs need to consider further means to advertise the importance of the role they perform and that the government should play a larger financial role in funding publicity for these elections and consider changing the method of election. Social implications The rationale for introducing PCCs was to empower the public in each police force area. However, issues that include the enhanced importance of political affiliation as a criteria for election in 2016 and the social unrepresentative nature of those who stood for election and those who secured election to this office in these contests coupled with shortcomings related to public awareness of both the role of PCCs and the timing of election contests threaten to undermine this objective. Originality/value The extensive use of primary source material ensures that the subject matter is original and its interpretation is informed by an academic perspective.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gbemi Oladipo Olaore ◽  
Bimbo Onaolapo Adejare ◽  
Ekpenyong Ekpenyong Udofia

Purpose Betting games have become a global industry worth billions of dollars providing employment to millions and contributing to the gross domestic product (GDP) of several countries. While there are debates and controversies surrounding betting games discourse, a growing body of literature shows that it has been exacerbated by growing unemployment rates. This paper aims to examine the nexus between the increasing involvement of youth in betting games and unemployment from the Nigerian perspective. Design/methodology/approach The study adopts simple random and stratified sampling techniques to select participants for the study. Three hypotheses were tested for this study and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation model (SEM) was used to test the hypotheses. Findings The three hypotheses tested in this study were coined from previous literature. The study established a direct link between technology advancement, promises of winning big coupled with bonuses while unemployment was not significant to youth involvement in betting games. The study also showed that playing betting games provides another source of income to the youth, who are already engaged in one form of work or another. Finally, youth involvement in betting games has created awareness regarding different sports in the world, while contributing to Nigeria’s economy. Practical implications As betting games centre as a business in Nigeria has contributed substantially and positively to unemployment in Nigeria; the Government of Nigeria are encouraged to streamline and regulate the activities of the sector such that they can contribute significantly to the country GDP and provide employment opportunities to the youths. Originality/value The research shows that the reason why betting games have a massive turnaround of youths in Nigeria is not majorly because of unemployment but as another means to a substantial financial individual/family income. Thus, Nigerian youths see betting games as an avenue to make more money. The study is the first of its kind to examine the nexus between betting games, technology and unemployment hence, its contribution to knowledge.


Author(s):  
Soha Abutaleb ◽  
Noha El-Bassiouny

PurposeThe paper examines three main stakeholders in the market and their roles toward achieving sustainability marketing. Those stakeholders are consumers, companies and policymakers. The current study is examining consumers’ attitudes toward sustainability marketing and their purchase intentions of sustainable products through the use of theory of planned behavior. The paper is also examining the role of companies and policymakers in encouraging consumers to consider sustainability in their purchasing decisions.Design/methodology/approachConcurrent research study is applied, where qualitative and quantitative research methods are conducted at the same time for different purposes with equal weights. Qualitative interviews were applied with fast-moving consumer goods companies and policymakers, while quantitative surveys were applied with Egyptian consumers.FindingsThe results showed that companies are taking serious and effective steps in transforming their marketing strategies into sustainable marketing ones. The government role is still limited as there are no strict laws and regulations that force companies and factories in Egypt to develop sustainability marketing strategies. Consumers’ attitudes were highly affected by firms' sustainable practices as well as subjective norms that led to influencing their intentions toward purchasing sustainable products.Originality/valueAlthough the topic of sustainability marketing is considered by a plenty of researchers in the academic discipline, there are no studies that have combined the main three stakeholders' roles in achieving sustainability marketing in one study. The study highlights the impact of government role and firms' role on consumers' attitudes and purchase intentions toward sustainable products, especially convenient products. This was done through the adoption of the theory of planned behavior.


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