HIFASS-LOPIN-3 Empowerment Programs and the Wellbeing of Orphans and Vulnerable Children in Southern Senatorial District of Cross River State, Nigeria

This study examined the various empowerment programs carried out by Health Initiatives for Safety and Stability in Africa – Local OVC Partner in Nigeria – Region 3 (HIFASS-LOPIN-3) as they affect the wellbeing of orphans and vulnerable children (OVC). Three objectives were outlined to include investigating the relationship between HIFASS-LOPIN-3 educational empowerment program and OVC’s school enrolment; HIFASS-LOPIN-3 provision of health services and OVC’s accessibility to quality healthcare facilities; HIFASS-LOPIN-3 skills acquisition training/financial empowerment program and the income level of OVC/caregivers. An Ex-post facto research design was employed in this study and a sample size of three hundred and eighty (380) respondents was drawn using multi-stage, simple random, stratified and snowball sampling techniques. The reliability test of the instrument was done using the test-retest reliability method. Primary data was obtained using a questionnaire and in-depth interview schedule, while secondary data was sourced from journals, texts, newspapers, internet, unpublished papers. The hypotheses were tested using Pearson’s Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient (r) and Chi-Square statistical techniques, together with frequency/percentage analysis. The study revealed among others that HIFASS-LOPIN-3 educational empowerment has significantly improved OVC’s school enrolment; HIFASS-LOPIN-3 skills acquisition training/financial empowerment program has significantly improved the income level of OVC/caregivers, nevertheless, almost all the OVC who reported having income-generating skills experienced challenges like insufficient start-up capital, insecurity, and crippling economic policies. It was recommended that government should make provision for OVC’s subsidized medical bills and adequate provision for start-up capital/equipment or materials should be made for older OVC/caregivers who receive skills acquisition training.

Teacher Careers in Education Systems That Are Coherent for Learning: Choose and Curate Toward Commitment to Capable and Committed Teachers (5Cs)

How can education authorities and organisations develop empowered, highly respected, strongly performance-normed, contextually embedded teaching professionals who cultivate student learning? This challenge is particularly acute in many low- and middle-income education systems that have successfully expanded school enrolment but struggle to help children master even the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic. In this primer, we synthesise research from a wide range of academic disciplines and country contexts, and we propose a set of principles for guiding the journey toward an empowered, effective teaching profession. We call these principles the 5Cs: choose and curate toward commitment to capable and committed teachers. These principles are rooted in the fact that teachers and their career structures are embedded in multi-level, multi-component systems that interact in complex ways. We also outline five premises for practice, each highlighting an area in which education authorities and organisations can change the typical status quo approach in order to apply the 5Cs and realise the vision of empowered teaching profession.

Between-school inequalities in access to STEM curricula in a marketized education system: The case of Australia

We used descriptive statistics and a logistic regression to examine between-school inequalities in science and math curricular offerings in Year 12 (final year) in all schools in one Australian state (Victoria). Dataset contains variables about school contexts: school enrolment size, school socioeconomic composition, school sector, and school location.

Between-school inequalities in access to STEM curricula in a marketized education system: The case of Australia

We used descriptive statistics and a logistic regression to examine between-school inequalities in science and math curricular offerings in Year 12 (final year) in all schools in one Australian state (Victoria). Dataset contains variables about school contexts: school enrolment size, school socioeconomic composition, school sector, and school location.

Grade retention and school entry age in Spain: a structural problem

Grade retention has been the focus of the education debate in Spain for decades. On average, more than 30% of students have repeated at least one grade before they finish (or dropout from) their compulsory studies. The present research provides new evidence on this issue by investigating the influence of Spain’s school entry age upon students’ grade retention. Using data from 15-year-old students who participated in the PISA 2006, 2009, 2012 and 2015 assessments, we implement a regression discontinuity analysis. Our key finding is that students who were born late in the year (younger students) are more likely to repeat a grade. Yet, once they reach secondary education, the disadvantage they suffer due to their younger school starting age seems to disappear. Hence, the key reason why younger students have lower PISA scores than older students in Spain is due to their increased likelihood of repeating a grade, rather than being due to their relative age per se. To avoid these artificial disadvantages of younger students and unfair retention, we suggest that policymakers inform families about this school entry issue and also make the school entry law more flexible. This would facilitate parents of younger children to choose whether to delay their children’s school enrolment or not.

Impact of foreign remittances on school enrolment and educational expenditures in district Peshawar, Pakistan

This study aims to identify the effects of foreign remittances on school enrolment and the educational expenditures of children in the Peshawar district. Primary data were acquired by simple random sampling and a questionnaire. Correspondingly, the logit approach and Heckman selection theory were utilized to examine school enrolment and educational expenses. The marginal effects were evaluated to determine the co-efficient. The study's findings indicate that Per Capita Remittances (PCRM) have a highly substantial and beneficial effect on children's school attendance, with a (10.8%) point increase in school enrolment for every 100 rupees rises in Per Capita Remittances (PCRM). Suppose a household's Per Capita Income (PCIM) improves by one hundred rupees, the probability of children enrolling in school increases by (0.17). The results indicate that PCRM and educational costs per kid are significantly and positively correlated. Educational spending per child increases by 12.01 rupees for every 100 rupees rise in family remittances per capita, whereas every 100 rupees increase in per capita income increases educational expenditure per kid by (8.38 PKR). Which leads to an 8.38 % marginal propensity to spend on child education.

Primary School Enrolment, Public Spending on Education and Economic Growth in Nigeria

This paper investigates the effect of primary school enrolment and public education spending on Nigeria’s economic growth using the Autoregressive distributed lag model (ARDL) for the period 1987 and 2017. The coefficient of the error correction model (ECM) reveals a negative sign of -0.304216 which implies that any disequilibrium in the system in the previous year will be corrected at a speed of 30.42 percent annually. Both the short run and long run models were nicely fitted with high coefficients of determination (R2) of about 62 percent. The analysis of the result also showed that primary school enrolment rate and public expenditure on education increased but their effects were less impactful on Nigeria’s economic growth. These findings perhaps could be attributed to the poor state of classrooms across, poor teacher-pupil ratio, unstable macroeconomic environment, dearth of instructional materials and more. The paper thus recommend that there should be re-design of educational strategies by the government to include enrolment campaigns, alternative learning programs, pro-poor economic incentive and more, especially at the basic education level and also increased her budgetary allocation to education sector in line with UNESCO recommendation of about 26 percent. Received: 9 June 2021 / Accepted: 28 September 2021 / Published: 5 September 2021

DETERMINANTS OF SCHOOL ENROLMENT IN INDONESIA: THE ROLE OF MINIMUM WAGE

This paper investigates the role of minimum wages in determining school enrolment (educational investment) in Indonesia using the National Socioeconomic Survey (Susenas). It finds that minimum wage legislation has a negative and significant substitution effect on educational investment. Individuals are more likely to drop out of senior secondary school as a result of a minimum wage legislation. Even though the response among low-income households is positive, this result may be generated by a fall in the probability of obtaining low-skilled employment, which offset the substitution effect.