Determinants of Access and Utilization of Climate Services Among Vulnerable Communities

Changes in climate have caused impacts on natural and human systems. These impacts affect poor people's lives through impacts on livelihoods and the destruction of homes. In Delta State, Nigeria, the impacts of climate change are real. Adaptation has been identified as the key to reducing the impacts of climate change. However, successful adaptation depends on use of climate services. While climate services are essential to adaptation, the services do not always reach the users who need it most. This chapter analyzes factors influencing access and utilization of climate services in Delta State. The chapter utilizes the survey research while data were analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Findings show a low utilization of climate service. The determinants of access and utilization of climate services include income, educational attainments, access to ICT facilities, extension agents, and the level of local climate variability. The chapter calls for awareness creation on the importance of climate services.

Learning outcome in literacy and numeracy in Uganda: Mining Uwezo assessment data to demonstrate the importance of maternal education

Academic performance in primary education plays a crucial role in obtaining further educational opportunities. Despite increased focus on addressing the inequality gaps in access to education, a number of studies have shown that children living in poor families with mothers who have low educational attainments experience less success, both in school and later as adults in the workforce, than children living in more advantaged circumstances. This paper analyses the effect of mothers’ education on the numeracy and literacy learning outcomes among children in Uganda. Mining data from the 2018 Uwezo Uganda Learning Assessment survey, we explore the influence of maternal education on learning outcomes. The findings showed that the proportion of children who demonstrated the ability of competently reading and comprehending a story of primary two level increased with increasing maternal education. Whereas only 13.6% of the primary four children whose mothers had never been to school were able to read and comprehend a story (the highest level in literacy assessment), more than four times (50.7%) of the children whose mother had above senior four qualification had similar abilities. A similar trend was seen with performance in numeracy where 31.9% of primary four children whose mothers had no education at all were able to attain the highest numeracy level, compared to 59.1% for children whose mothers level of education was beyond senior four. It was further observed that slightly more than one in three (35.6%) of the primary one/two children whose mothers had never been to school were completely non numerate compared to less than one in ten (9.0%) of the children whose mothers had studied beyond senior four who were non-numerate. Given the changes in access to schooling and impact on learning yielding from the global COVID 19 pandemic, whereas the data mined was collected before this pandemic, there is need for reflection on the home schooling approach being proposed by government and other stakeholders considering that this is likely to benefit more children whose mothers have higher levels of education than those with less education or never

Employment Status and Educational Achievements in Universities: Evidence from Southeast Nigeria

Introduction: Educational achievement has remained the common yardstick for assessing human capital development across the world. However, it has been observed that Nigeria is one of the developing countries facing the challenge of low level of academic achievement by employees in the university system, which in turn has grave implications for the overall performance of the Nigerian university system in terms of efficient work delivery. Methods: This study adopts a robust and stratified sampling technique to select 4,122 employees in selected federal universities in the southeast of Nigeria and uses structural questionnaire and binary logistic regression to analyse the effect of employment status on academic achievement in South East Nigeria. Results: The findings show that employment status negatively and significantly influences the academic achievement of employees in Nigerian universities. Discussion: The major focus of this study is to examine the impact of employment status on educational achievement in the universities for southeast, Nigeria. To drive more effective and efficient service delivery in the universities, there is need for adequate salary enhancement for employees in order to motivate them to strive for higher educational attainments. Limitations: The study was carried out in federal universities in Nigeria. It is expected to expand the study to cut across both private, states in Nigeria for effective and efficient comparison among the universities found in southeast geopolitical zones. Conclusion: The study concludes that government should continuously motivate these employees so that they can strive for higher educational attainments.

Women and Pensions in Italy: Gender Imbalances and the Equalization of Retirement Age

This paper examines the age at retirement for men and women in Italy. Despite the expansion of women’s educational attainments, they still display lower employment rates, are frequently engaged in involuntary part-time jobs and have more fragmented careers. As a consequence, the mean age at which women receive a pension is higher than that of men. Using Labour Force Survey (2006 and 2012), the authors test the hypothesis that women’s higher age at retirement is determined by a selection bias towards more educated and work oriented women. A Heckman selection model has been developed. Results show that the main disadvantage is suffered by women with medium and low levels of education who show the highest estimated age at retirement, whereas higher educated women retire on average before men with the same level of education. The authors argue that pension policies, without interventions in the field of work-life balance policies, end up penalizing women with lower levels of education.

The Interplay of Race/Ethnicity and Education in Fertility Patterns

This study examines the racial/ethnic and educational disparities in fertility for U.S. women born during 1960–80. Using data from the National Survey of Family Growth from 2006 to 2017, we apply a regression-based approach to estimate 1) cohort total fertility rates, 2) parity progression ratios, and 3) parity-specific probability of having a birth by age, for non-Hispanic Whites, non-Hispanic Blacks, and Hispanics by educational attainments. We find that compared to their White counterparts, Black and Hispanic women with less than a high school education have higher fertility. However, among college educated women, Blacks have the lowest fertility levels, whereas Hispanics have the highest. The difference in fertility between Black and White college educated women is mainly driven by the smaller proportion of Black mothers having second births. We find little evidence that the observed racial disparities in fertility levels across educational levels are driven by differences in fertility timing.

Parental belief towards online-based language learning amidst the pandemic

The pandemic had impeded the accustomed, traditional face-to-face synchronous modality of instruction. Attributable to the impediment, a revolutionized modality of pedagogy had to be conceptualized and subsequently adopted to ascertain that education does not halt. To date, the state-of-the-art technology provides the optimal option as a route the education sector could take. Though indirectly, parents – being one of the stakeholders of education – had to be involved in the business of educating the next generation. Along these claims, the present study investigated the beliefs of parents towards online-based language pedagogy. A total of 120 respondents of varying educational attainments ranging from elementary, secondary, tertiary, and postgraduate were surveyed online via an adapted research instrument, named as PBOBLLQ. The current paper employed a descriptive quantitative method which aids in shedding light on the beliefs of parents towards online-based language instruction. Also, a significant difference in the parents’ beliefs across educational attainment was confirmed.

Acceptance of COVID-19 Vaccines Among Physicians in Mid Delta Region of Egypt: A Cross-Sectional Study

Background Safe and effective vaccines became an important preventive tool to protect people against novel Corona Virus Disease infection. Since physicians are at higher risk for contagion of COVID-19 infection, they were prioritized for early vaccination. Also, they are role models who can improve adherence of people to vaccination. Aim of the study: to determine the acceptability of COVID-19 vaccines among physicians in the Gharbia governorate, Egypt. Methods: A cross-sectional study recruited working physicians through snowballing random sampling technique. Data was collected by using a self-administered electronic questionnaire which measured the self-perceived risk to COVID-19 infection, the attitudes and acceptance of COVID-19 vaccines. Results: The study enrolled 1268 physicians, 22% of them were vaccinated .Only 24% expressed their acceptance towards COVID-19 vaccines, while 36.7% didn't agree to get vaccinated. Vaccination unacceptance was significantly associated with increasing age, female gender, higher educational attainments, limited income, no direct patients' contact, diagnostic subspecialty, and working in a rural health facility (p= 0.004, 0.02, <0.0001, <0.0001, 0.01, 0.01, 0.002 respectively).Conclusions: Though physicians are at higher risk of infection, they had poor acceptance of COVID-19 vaccines which may, induce reluctance of people to get vaccinated. Special actions should be tailored to address the significant mediators associated with vaccine unacceptability.