COVID-19 Pandemic and Strategizing the Higher Education Policies of Public Universities of Ethiopia

The purpose of the research is to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on higher education policies and their effect on students' academic performance at public universities in Ethiopia. The study adopts a quantitative approach followed by causal analysis by applying structural equation modeling. A sample of 384 has been selected through simple random sampling out of a large population of academic staff spread homogeneously across Ethiopia. The study variables are COVID-19, higher education policies, digital learning, teacher preparedness, and student academic performance. The findings reveal that the hypothesized model becomes a perfect fit. Based on the standardized coefficient, the most influencing path is the effect of higher education policy on digital learning, followed by the impact of COVID-19 on higher education policy, academic performance, and teacher preparedness, respectively. The study has further observed the partial effect of teacher preparedness on the students' academic performance.

You Can't Be What You Can't See

This chapter presents the policy, practice, and societal contexts of initial teacher education in Ireland as a backdrop to the TOBAR programme. Primary teaching in Ireland is a high status and high demand profession, yet the teaching body is predominately white, female, and Catholic. In recent years, in response to changes in Irish society, and in initial teacher education and higher education policy, new initiatives have been introduced to diversify the teaching body. In the second section of this chapter, the authors present an overview of one such initiative: the TOBAR programme. The TOBAR programme supports Irish travellers to participate in initial teacher education programmes. Drawing on a series on interviews with students on the TOBAR programme, the authors report that the programme is having a positive impact on the students but that many challenges and barriers still exist.

Confronting horror, embracing fantasy: A conversation about Lovecraft Country and radical imagination in higher education

Higher education is at a pivotal point of reflection due to the forces of neoliberalism, anti-Blackness, and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In the past, higher education has overlooked the university’s far future, opting to focus on readily conspicuous change. Along with this disregarded conversation, these crises present higher education faculty, administrators, and staff an opportunity to critically re-think the future of higher education given what we know now and what we do not. In this dialogic essay between a higher education policy doctoral student and a tenured media and communications professor, the authors peer into the hit HBO series Lovecraft Country and its underlying themes of horror, fantasy, and historical reality to extract vital lessons for higher education. The authors further participate in conversations about utilizing world and storymaking tactics to help higher education envision the university of the future—a future that is radical and boundless.

What Should the Right to Higher Education Look Like?

This chapter addresses some key objections to the right to higher education and provides a fuller picture of what this right can look like at the level of public policy and institutional practice. First, the chapter revisits the broader rationale for the argument in order to show how a rights-based conception of can better inform public debate about the justice, fairness, and purposes of higher education. Second, it applies this account to Martin Trow’s famous conceptualization of higher education systems into “elite,” “mass,” and “universal” stages of growth and development in order to demonstrate how the right to higher education can inform higher education policy. Finally, it addresses the worry that the right to higher education overstates the importance of post-compulsory education for a liberal society. Here the chapter engages with issues about the role of higher education in the promotion of human welfare and the level of “idealization” built into the argument.

Tudásalapú gazdaság – Iparpolitika – Felsőoktatás : Knowledge based economy –industrial policy –higher education

A tanulmány célja, hogy a tudásalapú gazdasághoz illeszkedő iparpolitika és felsőoktatás-politika kereteit bemutassa. Az elemzés kiindulópontja, hogy szerkezetváltás megy végbe a globalizáció technológiai folyamataiban. Új ágazatok emelkednek ki és új intézményi szerkezetben történik a technológia irányítása. Az ágazati váltás legfontosabb eleme az infrastruktúra megújulása, ami köré szerveződnek az ágazatok. A tanulmány második részében a felsőoktatás változását mutatjuk be, ami mindig is szorosan kapcsolódott az iparpolitikához. Az új elem a tudásalapú gazdaság időszakában, hogy az oktatás átfogóbb szerepre tesz szert, a gazdasági fejlődés alapvető intézményi kerete lesz. A tanulmány harmadik részében emiatt elemezzük empirikus eszközökkel a hazai felsőoktatás lemorzsolódási mutatóit, és mutatjuk ki, hogy a felsőoktatási intézmények részéről az erőfeszítés a hallgatók megőrzésére hosszú távon kifizetődő lehet. The aim of the paper is to provide a policy framework for the industrial policy and higher education policy in the knowledge-based economy. The knowledge-based economy and society is the main feature of new era of globalization which means that new industries have launched, and new institutional structure has started to build in a global scale. The main characteristic of the new technology is the infrastructure (including space technology, 5G) and the infrastructure gives a new impetus to other industries. In the second part of paper, we show several stages of the development of higher education. Our main tenet is the strong connection between industrial policy and the development of higher education. We argue that the higher education will have got a stronger role in the new era. In the third part, we analyze the dropout rate in the Hungarian higher education and give some policy recommendation to mitigate it.

A política pública de ação afirmativa da educação superior indígena na Universidade Federal do Paraná (UFPR) sob o olhar de uma secretária executiva

A Universidade Federal do Paraná (UFPR) se mostrou uma das pioneiras na implementação da política de educação superior indígena, pois em 2004 já realizava discussões nesta temática, o que culminou na Resolução n. 37/2004 do Conselho Universitário (COUN). Considerando tal afirmativa, este artigo tem como objetivo analisar a política pública de ação afirmativa pelo viés da educação superior indígena na UFPR, considerando a atuação e experiência de uma Secretária Executiva nessa área e temática. Para tanto, realizou-se uma aproximação teórica entre os conceitos inerentes ao secretariado executivo, políticas públicas, ações afirmativas; política educacional superior indígena – específica de ingresso na instituição de ensino investigada. Na metodologia contemplou-se o Modelo de Múltiplos Fluxos, o Estudo de Caso e a abordagem da análise de conteúdo. O destaque foi dado à formação da agenda política, cotejando entrevistas com os gestores e informantes-chave da implementação da política na UFPR. Por fim, como resultado localizou-se a agenda nessa conjunção política considerando os elementos históricos e institucionais, a ocorrência da ação do governo no papel dos gestores da universidade, ainda a dos movimentos sociais, da comunidade acadêmica e verificou-se a mudança das ações políticas principalmente na gestão 2002/2006. ABSTRACT The Federal University of Paraná (UFPR), proved to be a pioneer in the implementation of indigenous higher education policy, since in 2004, it already had discussions on this theme, that brought as a result the resolution number 37/04 of the University Council (COUN). Considering this statement, this paper aims to analyze the public policy of affirmative action by the bias of indigenous higher education at UFPR, considering the performance and experience of an Executive Secretariat in this area and thematic. Therefore, a theoretical approach was carried out between the concepts inherent to the executive secretariat, public policy, affirmative actions, indigenous higher education policy - the specifically of admission the educational investigated. In the methodology, we contemplated the Multiple Streams Models, Case Study and the Content Analysis approach. The emphasis was given to the agenda formation, collating interviews with managers and key informants of the implementation of the policy in UFPR. Nevertheless, as result, located the agenda in this political conjunction considering the historical and institutional elements, the occurrence of government action in the role of institutional managers, as well as the social movements, the academic community and there was a change in political actions mainly in the 2002/2006 management.

Policy Diffusion of Performance Funding Equity Metrics: Traditional Neighbor and Dyadic Survival Analyses

While previous research on higher education policy diffusion often conceptualizes diffusion as occuring across neighboring governments, we conceptualize policy diffusion as also occuring across pairs of governments (dyads) regardless of geographic proximity. We apply both conceptualizations and use survival analysis techniques to examine factors associated with state adoption of performance funding equity metrics. Results show that the proportion of neighbors with equity metrics is unrelated to the likelihood of adopting a metric for either the 2- or 4-year sector, suggesting no evidence of policy diffusion across borders. The directed dyad analysis reveals that states are less likely to adopt a 4-year metric when the other state in the pair already operates a 4-year metric, indicating that states look beyond neighbors in policy avoidance behaviors. Internal state factors such as higher levels of legislative professionalism and greater enrollment of underrepresented minority and low-income students increase the likelihood of policy adoption. A state is less likely to imitate the adoption of 2-year equity metrics in another state when the pair show greater differences in legislative professionalism, minority and low-income student enrollment, income per capita, and income inequality. Our research highlights the utility of quantitatively modeling policy diffusion across governmental units that are distantly located, especially for higher education policy components that are nationally visible.