Enterprise education: pre-service further education teachers' impressions and aspirations

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the attitudes and impressions of pre-service Further Education teachers towards enterprise education. It also looks at the potential impact on their future teaching practices and aspirations. This study builds on the literature in this area by bringing a teacher education focus and by providing views from the underserved further education sector.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative research approach was used to evaluate pre-service further education teachers' understanding of and attitudes towards, enterprise education. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 15 students in their final year of an initial teacher education degree.FindingsFindings emerged through constant comparative analysis of interview transcripts. These findings indicate that exposure to enterprise education greatly increased understanding of its importance and relevance, while also encouraging pre-service further education teachers to recognise the benefits of incorporating enterprise education into their classrooms of the future.Originality/valueWhile there is an array of literature on entrepreneurship and enterprise education outside of business contents, very few studies exist, which examine enterprise education in an initial teacher education context. Fewer still examine enterprise education from the perspective of further education. This study provides a unique qualitative view of pre-service further education teachers' impressions of enterprise education and their aspirations for the future.

Academic Endowments in the United Kingdom – Do They Make a Difference?

This paper analyses the role and significance of the endowments for the UK higher education system. We have systematised the metrics commonly used to measure the performance of the academic endowments. To collect the data about universities and colleges, we exploited the data provided by the HESA (Higher Education Statistics Agency) that collect and disseminate UK higher education data and the data provided by the Charity Commission for England and Wales. The size of the university and colleges endowments is valued using their respective financial statements, using endowment reserve account of the balance sheet.The academic endowments linked with the UK universities and colleges are estimated to be worth £15.8 billion in 2020. According to the number of the endowments linked with universities and colleges endowments, they play a significant role in the UK higher education system. However, there is a notable difference concerning endowment size between the few most reputable academic institutions and other universities and colleges. For example, the two largest endowments (the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge with accompanied colleges endowments) in 2020 had a share of 75% measured by the size of the endowment assets. Moreover, this 75% has been stable during the last several years.In addition, the UK academic endowments are much smaller than their US counterparts and thus generally have lesser significance for the UK higher education system, while they may play a significant role for particular institutions. The endowment size per student has also been much smaller in the UK than in the US. Except for the six universities and colleges, the share of the income coming from endowments and donations in the total income has been relatively low, 2% or less. Considering the long history and tradition of the endowments in England, their role in the UK higher education system is deeply rooted. However, with their historical performance and significance for some higher education providers, there is an opportunity for a more prominent role in the future.

Obstacles for Students With Disabilities in the Supervision Process at Postgraduate Level in South Africa

The chapter presents the obstacles in supervision for students with disabilities at post-graduate level in South African higher education. Data were collected through scanning South African and international literature available on Google scholar, ProQuest, in books, journal articles, and online resources. Decolonial theory informed understanding of why the obstacles are confronted by the particular students. The findings revealed limited supervision is the main obstacle. The argument for the chapter is that students with disabilities' obstacles in supervision are far deeper than those seen at surface level.

Evaluation of Feature Selection Methods on Psychosocial Education Data Using Additive Ratio Assessment

Artificial intelligence, particularly machine learning, is the fastest-growing research trend in educational fields. Machine learning shows an impressive performance in many prediction models, including psychosocial education. The capability of machine learning to discover hidden patterns in large datasets encourages researchers to invent data with high-dimensional features. In contrast, not all features are needed by machine learning, and in many cases, high-dimensional features decrease the performance of machine learning. The feature selection method is one of the appropriate approaches to reducing the features to ensure machine learning works efficiently. Various selection methods have been proposed, but research to determine the essential subset feature in psychosocial education has not been established thus far. This research investigated and proposed methods to determine the best feature selection method in the domain of psychosocial education. We used a multi-criteria decision system (MCDM) approach with Additive Ratio Assessment (ARAS) to rank seven feature selection methods. The proposed model evaluated the best feature selection method using nine criteria from the performance metrics provided by machine learning. The experimental results showed that the ARAS is promising for evaluating and recommending the best feature selection method for psychosocial education data using the teacher’s psychosocial risk levels dataset.

Character Education Concepts and Values in The Teaching of Gratitude (A Critical Analysis of Major Qur’anic Exegesis Texts)

This paper aimed to explore and find the concept and content of character values of being grateful. This research was library research using qualitative data types. The primary sources were Tafsr al-Qurān al-'Aẓῑm, Tafsr al-Fakhri ar-Rāzi, Tafsr al-Maraghi, at-Tafsῑr al-Munῑr, Tafsr al-Karῑm ar-Raḥmān fā Tafsῑr Kalām, and Tafsir al-Azhar. At the same time, secondary sources were books or journals related to the concept of gratitude and the value of character education. Data from sources were collected using documentation, then analyzed using subjective thematic interpretation methods and objective hermeneutics. The results showed that the concept of character education in the teaching of gratitude in QS. Ibrahim (14): 7 is both targῑb (motivation) and tarhῑb (threat). This concept will make humans remain in the circle of goodness, who is always patient and grateful to Allah SWT. There are nine values of character education in the teaching of gratitude: trustworthiness, qanā'ah, creativity, hard work, trustworthiness, optimism, caring for others, tawaduk, and istiqamah. These values will be attached to someone who makes gratitude a habit that can be both a motivation and a threat (targῑb wa tarhῑb). These nine character values will have implications for increasing devotion to Allah SWT and increasing compassion for fellow creatures.

How Noncredit Enrollments Distort Community College IPEDS Data: An Eight-State Study

A commonly used metric for measuring college costs, drawn from data in the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), is expenditure per full-time equivalent (FTE) student. This article discusses an error in this per FTE calculation when using IPEDS data, especially with regard to community colleges. The problem is that expenditures for noncredit courses are reported to IPEDS but enrollments are not. This exclusion inflates any per FTE student figure calculated from IPEDS, in particular expenditures and revenues. A 2021 IPEDS Technical Review Panel (TRP #62) acknowledged this problem and moved campus institutional research offices a step closer to reporting noncredit enrollment data (RTI International, 2021). This article is the first to provide some numbers on the magnitude of this problem. It covers eight states—California, Iowa, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. Data on noncredit community college enrollments were made available from system offices in all states. In addition, discussions were held at both the system level and the campus level to verify the data and assumptions. Figures provided by states were merged with existing IPEDS data at the campus and state levels, and then were adjusted to account for noncredit enrollments. The results provide evidence that calculations using IPEDS data alone overestimate the resources that community colleges have to spend on each student, although distortions vary greatly between states and among colleges in the same state. The results have important implications for research studies and college benchmarking.

Japanese children’s experiences in New Zealand early childhood education settings

Early childhood education (ECE) settings in Aotearoa New Zealand are becoming increasingly ethnically superdiverse. This article draws on a research project that examined the cultural challenges that Japanese children sometimes encounter in New Zealand ECE contexts which was undertaken for my Doctor of Education. Data were analysed using a conceptual framework developed from five key notions that apply to third-culture individuals (TCI). The experiences of one child in this project and the tensions he experienced negotiating his self-identity as a Japanese child are described and their impact on his sense of belonging to the group of children at the centre is considered. The findings revealed that, despite the good intentions of teachers, the child’s Japanese cultural identity, and his attempts to share it, were frequently challenged by his teachers’ lack of cultural knowledge about Japan. I argue that these experiences resulted in complex situations for both the Japanese child and his teachers.

Mapping the education data ecosystem in Sierra Leone

An output of the EdTech Hub, https://edtechhub.org