scholarly journals Who Benefits from Secondary Education Bursary Fund in Kenya?

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 337
Author(s):  
John Mugun Boit

<p>This study examined the effectiveness of the Secondary Education Bursary Fund SEBF in<br />enhancing equity in access to secondary school educational opportunities. The discussion is<br />guided by Rawls’ theory of social justice as fairness (1971) upon which the concept of equity is<br />grounded. The study is specifically influenced by the Difference Principle and the Criterion of<br />Reciprocity on the basis of reasonable citizenship as espoused by Rawls. The Secondary<br />Education Bursary Fund (SEBF) was established in 1994 by a presidential decree to help the<br />socio-economically disadvantaged groups to access secondary education. The findings indicate<br />that the bursary beneficiaries transcend all socio-economic boundaries and that the allocation<br />mechanism did not, as was intended, effectively target bursary support to students from poor<br />and vulnerable socio-economic groups. As a result, the fund has had little impact on equity in<br />access to secondary education. There is therefore an urgent need to make necessary structural<br />and management adjustments to the bursary fund to make it more responsive and selective to<br />those in need of financial support. Of significance is adoption of management information<br />systems to enable effective and efficient administration of the fund. The findings will inform<br />management decisions geared towards revitalizing the fund as well as informing policy<br />formulation and review and aid scholarly debate on issues of educational financial subsidies.</p>

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 291-317
Author(s):  
Marloes L. Nederhand ◽  
Huib K. Tabbers ◽  
Joran Jongerling ◽  
Remy M. J. P. Rikers

Abstract Grades provide students with information about their level of performance. However, grades may also make students more aware of how well they have estimated their performance, their so-called calibration accuracy. This longitudinal quasi-experimental study, set in secondary education, examined how to increase students’ awareness of the accuracy of their grade estimates in order to improve their calibration accuracy. During an entire school year, students from year 1, 2, and 3 provided grade estimates after each of their French exams. Subsequently, when students received their grades, the level of reflection support on their earlier estimates was manipulated. The first group of students just received their grade, the second group had to calculate the difference between their estimate and the actual grade, and the third group also had to reflect on reasons for a possible mismatch. We expected that more reflection support would lead to more improvement in calibration accuracy. Results showed that providing grade estimates already improved calibration accuracy over the school year, regardless of level of reflection support. This finding shows that asking for grade estimates is an easy-to-implement way to improve calibration accuracy of students in secondary education.


2021 ◽  
Vol 96 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-30
Author(s):  
Lisa A. Janssen ◽  
Gijs Huitsing ◽  
Ben ter Beek ◽  
Anneke C. Timmermans

Abstract Do students with low-educated parents have similar educational opportunities as students without low-educated parents during the transition to secondary education? Study 1 matched 62 students with low-educated parents to students with the same math score in grade 7. Despite this matching procedure, similar teachers’ advice for secondary education, and scores on the Central Examination, students with low-educated parents started at lower educational levels in secondary education. Study 2 conducted semi-structured interviews with 18 decisionmakers to explain these differences. Teachers and other decisionmakers account for (lack of) support from parents and possible deviant behavior of students for placement in secondary school.


2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Blain Neufeld

The first principle of Rawls’s conception of justice secures a set of ‘basic liberties’ equally for all citizens within the constitutional structure of society. The ‘worth’ of citizens’ liberties, however, may vary depending upon their wealth. Against Rawls, Cohen contends that an absence of money often can directly constrain citizens’ freedom and not simply its worth. This is because money often can remove legally enforced constraints on what citizens can do. Cohen’s argument – if modified to apply to citizens’ ‘moral powers’ rather than ‘negative liberty’ – threatens a core feature of Rawls’s conception of justice, as it is unclear why the parties within the ‘original position’ would endorse the lexical priority of the first principle over the ‘difference principle’ (which concerns the distribution of wealth) if both principles similarly shape citizens’ freedom. I concede Cohen’s point regarding the relation between freedom and money but argue that it is not fatal to Rawls’s conception of justice if the ‘basic needs principle’ is understood to enjoy lexical priority over the first principle and is modified to include a right to adequate discretionary time. Nonetheless, Cohen’s argument helpfully highlights the infelicitous nature of Rawls’s terminology with respect to liberty: the basic needs principle, the first principle and the difference principle all should be understood as shaping citizens’ freedom to exercise their moral powers.


2002 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 703-724 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derek Bell

It is often assumed that neutralist liberalism and environmentalism are incompatible because promoting environmentally friendly policies involves endorsing a particular conception of the good life. This paper questions that assumption by showing that one important version of neutralist liberalism, John Rawls's ‘justice as fairness’, can allow two kinds of justification for environmental policies. First, public reason arguments can be used to justify conceptions of sustainability and environmental justice. Second, comprehensive ideals (including non-anthropocentric ideals) can be used to justify more ambitious environmental policies when two conditions are met, namely, the issue under discussion does not concern constitutional essentials or matters of basic justice; and the policy is endorsed by a majority of citizens. Rawls's willingness to allow this second kind of justification for environmental (and other) policies is defended against two objections, which claim that Rawls's ‘democratic liberalism’ is incoherent. The first objection – the ‘justice’ objection – is that to spend public money promoting comprehensive (environmental) ideals is inconsistent with the ‘difference principle’. The ‘justice’ objection depends on a common misunderstanding of the difference principle. The second objection – the ‘neutrality’ objection – claims that ‘democratic liberalism’ is inconsistent with Rawls's commitment to neutrality. The ‘neutrality’ objection is unconvincing because ‘democratic liberalism’ is ‘fundamentally neutral’ whereas the leading alternative is not.


2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (5) ◽  
pp. 674-698 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens van ’t Klooster

The dramatic events of the crisis have reignited debates on the independence of central banks and the scope of their mandates. In this article, I contribute to the normative understanding of these developments by discussing John Rawls’s position in debates of the 1950s and 1960s on the independence of the US Federal Reserve. Rawls’s account of the central bank in his property-owning democracy, Democratic Central Banking (DCB), assigns authority over monetary policy directly to the government and prioritizes low unemployment over price stability. I contrast DCB with Central Bank Independence (CBI), which requires that the central bank is independent of the government and pursues low inflation. I evaluate DCB by asking whether justice as fairness requires democratic control of the central bank and argue that it does not. Instead, so I argue, the choice between DCB and CBI should be justified in terms of the difference principle. By reflecting on central banking in a property-owning democracy, I cast new light on the Rawlsian realistic utopia of a just capitalist society, while also investigating democratic objections to today’s independent central banks.


2013 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 349-369 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Kaufman

John Rawls argues that it is possible to describe a suitably defined initial situation from which to form reliable judgements about justice. In this initial situation, rational persons are deprived of information that is ‘irrelevant from the standpoint of justice’. It is rational, Rawls argues, for persons choosing principles of justice from this standpoint to be guided by the maximin rule. Critics, however, argue that (i) the maximin rule is not the appropriate decision rule for Rawls's choice position; (ii) the maximin argument relies upon an imprecise account of the satisfactory minimum to be secured under the maximin rule; or that (iii) Rawls relies upon unrealistic assumptions about diminishing marginal value. These critics, I will suggest, argue from a number of assumptions that are confused or false. The satisfactory minimum that choosers in the original position – employing the maximin rule – seek to achieve is not a minimum level of primary goods, nor is the satisfactory minimum sought under the maximin rule supplied by the difference principle. I will argue that the maximin argument is more robust than has generally been recognized and that this argument performs a number of important functions in clarifying the nature and implications of Rawls's argument for justice as fairness.


2014 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-33
Author(s):  
Paul Janssenswillen ◽  
Wil Meeus

De vernederlandsing van het middelbaar onderwijs in Vlaanderen was een moeizaam proces dat zich over een lange periode uitstrekte. De nu vijftig jaar oude taalwet van 1963 wordt als eindpunt van dit proces beschouwd. Het tempo van de vernederlandsing verschilde van school tot school naargelang van hun ligging en leiding.Het bisschoppelijke Sint-Hubertuscollege in Neerpelt is het eerste Vlaams college. Daar werd in 1910 volledig Nederlandstalig gestart zowel tijdens de klasuren als erbuiten in de ontspanningstijd en het godsdienstig verenigingsleven. Gunstige factoren waren in dit verband de ligging van de school, ver weg van de taalgrens of een verfranste stad, met vrijwel geen Waalse leerlingen én de gebrekkige Franse taalkennis van de leerlingen die zich in 1910 aanboden. Ook de onvolledige humanioracyclus en het ontbreken van een concurrerende rijksschool speelden daarbij mee. Deze gunstige omgevingsfactoren en het feit dat in naburige katholieke colleges zoals die van Peer en Maaseik het vernederlandsingsproces in een stroomversnelling zat, werden door de koppige directeur Jaak Peuskens aangegrepen om het Nederlands in zijn college in te voeren. Het bisdom dat hem hiervoor op de vingers tikte, liet uiteindelijk betijen na een goede uitslag in de jaarlijkse staatsprijskamp.Met de inrichting van een internaat en de volledige humanioracyclus en de faam als eerste Vlaams college vergrootte de school haar rekruteringsgebied. Dat gebeurde onder impuls van de ondernemende directeur Gerard Nulens die contacten onderhield in Vlaamsgezinde milieus van diverse strekking. Neerpelt dat via het spoor gemakkelijk bereikbaar was, werd zo een flamingantisch trefpunt. Onder meer de zonen van Frans Van Cauwelaert, August Borms en Emiel Wildiers zaten er op de schoolbanken. Ook nadat het bisdom onverwacht en zonder duidelijke motivering de hoogste twee klassen van de klassieke humaniora afschafte, bleef het college van Neerpelt aantrekkingskracht uitoefenen op zonen van leidinggevende Vlaamsgezinden.________The Sint-Hubertuscollege (St Hubert’s secondary School) in Neerpelt: the first Flemish secondary school?A micro-investigation of the Dutchification of secondary education.The Dutchification of secondary education in Flanders was a laborious process that took a very long time. The now fifty year old law on the use of language of 1963 is considered as the finishing point of this process. The speed of the Dutchification differed from school to school according to its location and administration.The Episcopal Sint-Hubertuscollege in Neerpelt was the first Flemish secondary school. In 1910 it became an entirely Dutch speaking school, where Dutch was used during classes as well as elsewhere during leisure time and at religious associations. This was favoured by factors such as the location of the school, far away from the language border or a Frenchified city, the fact that there were hardly any Walloon pupils as well as the deficient knowledge of French of the pupils who applied in 1910. In addition, the incomplete cycle of coursework in humanities and the lack of a competing state school played a role. The stubborn director Jaak Peuskens took advantage of these favourable environmental factors and the fact that in neighbouring Catholic secondary schools like the ones in Peer and Maaseik the Dutchification process was rapidly gaining speed in order to introduce Dutch in his secondary school. The diocese that rapped him over the knuckles for this, in the end condoned it after the school obtained a good result in the annual state competition.After the setting up of the boarding school, the introduction of the complete humanities cycle and the resulting fame of being the first Flemish secondary school, the school enlarged its catchment area for recruitment. This happened at the instigation of the enterprising director Gerard Nulens who had contacts in pro-Flemish circles of various tendencies. Thus Neerpelt, which was so easily accessible by rail, became a Pro-Flemish meeting point. Pupils who attended the school included among others the sons of Frans Van Cauwelaert, August Borms and Emiel Wildiers. Even after the diocese unexpectedly and without clear motivation cancelled the two highest classes of the classical humanities cycle, the secondary school of Neerpelt continued to attract the sons of pro-Flemish leaders.


Author(s):  
Anna-Maria Stenseth ◽  
Unn-Doris K. Bæck

AbstractThis study explores the influence of geographical location on young pupils’ educational orientations and their transition from lower to upper secondary school; it pays particular attention to the voices of male youths from a rural area. More specifically, it investigates the interplay between gender and geographical contexts and the significance of these factors in understanding the processes associated with educational orientations. Margaret Archer’s framework is used to analyse how pupils’ agency is constrained and/or enabled by objective structures. The data material consists of qualitative interviews with 18 pupils transitioning from lower to upper secondary school in Norway. Each of the pupils was interviewed twice: first when they were in their last year of lower secondary education, and then during their first year of upper secondary education. The findings show that pupils consider geographical locations when making decisions about further education and work. In addition, they believe that education beyond compulsory schooling benefits their life in the rural areas. However, unlike their urban counterparts, pupils from rural areas appear to have a more constraining transition to upper secondary education. Through the analyses in this article, it becomes clear that both geographical location and gender are key factors for understanding processes connected to education.


Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 153
Author(s):  
Daniel Amo ◽  
Paul Fox ◽  
David Fonseca ◽  
César Poyatos

Robotics technology has become increasingly common both for businesses and for private citizens. Primary and secondary schools, as a mirror of societal evolution, have increasingly integrated science, technology, engineering and math concepts into their curricula. Our research questions are: “In teaching robotics to primary and secondary school students, which pedagogical-methodological interventions result in better understanding and knowledge in the use of sensors in educational robotics?”, and “In teaching robotics to primary and secondary school students, which analytical methods related to Learning Analytics processes are proposed to analyze and reflect on students’ behavior in their learning of concepts and skills of sensors in educational robotics?”. To answer these questions, we have carried out a systematic review of the literature in the Web of Science and Scopus databases regarding robotics sensors in primary and secondary education, and Learning Analytics processes. We applied PRISMA methodology and reviewed a total of 24 articles. The results show a consensus about the use of the Learning by Doing and Project-Based Learning methodologies, including their different variations, as the most common methodology for achieving optimal engagement, motivation and performance in students’ learning. Finally, future lines of research are identified from this study.


1976 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
pp. 319-333 ◽  

Joseph Proudman was born on 30 December 1888 at Thurston Fold Farm, Unsworth, near Bury in Lancashire. His father was then a farm bailiff; from 1898 to his death in 1943 he was a small tenant farmer at Bold, near Widnes in Lancashire. Joseph Proudman attended primary school at Unsworth from 1894 to 1898, and at Bold from 1898 to 1902. From 1902 to 1907 he was a pupil-teacher at Farnworth primary school between Bold and Widnes. He tells us that in 1902 his salary was £6 10s. Od. per year, and in 1907 it was £24 per year. His secondary education was begun by the headmaster, A. R. Smith, who gave him a lesson each morning from 8 to 8.45 before the school opened at 9. During the winters of 1902-4 he attended evening classes at the Widnes Technical School, studying art, mathematics and physiography. From 1903 to 1907 he only taught for half of each week; the other half he attended classes at the Widnes Secondary School. This was an excellent school, and it was here that the mathematical bent of his life was determined. From that time onwards his chief recreation became reading, especially the reading of history. One result of this interest was the writing of the unusually full autobiographical papers, of which the present writers have made much use.


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