Rajasthan: Health professionals supply and demand

: Till recently the government is planning for national level availability of doctors. However, to improve health care service delivery, robust regional planning for production and supply of health professionals is need of hour. The study aims to understand the demand and supply of trained doctors and tertiary care facilities in different regions of Rajasthan.: Data of undergraduate medical entrance were used to adjust against the voluntary attrition rate, superannuation rate, natural death rate and external additions to define the pool of available practicing doctors. The estimates were generated by forecasting the population and expected supply of doctors till the year 2035 by projecting the data by Average Exponential Growth Rate (AEGR).: The study suggests that in 2018 the density of doctors was 0.32 per thousand population in Rajasthan than that of 0.7 in India. At the current AEGR of 5.53 %, density of doctors will only improve to 0.73 in year 2035. There are 16 districts with 41.1 % of the population of Rajasthan have no medical school or any tertiary health care institution. Similarly, undergraduate enrollment varies in different regions from 1.5 to 13.5 students per 100000 population.: The challenge of availability of qualified doctors in Rajasthan will persist even in year 2035. There is an urgent need to ensure regionally balanced production and supply of skilled doctors.

A product of prestige?: “Race unknown” and competitive admissions in the United States

Policy researchers have difficulty understanding stratification in enrollment in US higher education when race and ethnicity data are plagued by missing values. Students who decline to ethnoracially self-identify become part of a “race unknown” reporting category. In undergraduate enrollment, “race unknown” students are not randomly distributed and are highest among the most selective universities. In this “Policy Research Note,” we investigate these patterns at US law schools to understand if they are driven by selectivity. We find that the most competitive law schools, on average, report 8% of their students are race unknown, double the rate of other law schools. We argue that race unknown enrollment cannot be ignored when studying ethnoracial enrollments in higher education because it varies systematically by institutional type and may mask actual rates of ethnoracial diversity. We posit that the race unknown category is likely produced by a combination of individual and institutional processes. Individual applicants may resist disclosing their ethnoracial identities, perhaps because of a perceived threat to their chances of admission. Additionally, institutional actors may willfully ignore race unknown students (not following up upon enrollment) because this category may enhance the appearance of campus diversity by diminishing the percentages of students in over-represented ethnoracial groups. In this way, high rates of race unknown students may be a product of prestigious and highly competitive educational processes.

Application of Markov chain in students’ assessment and performance: a case study of School of Mathematical Sciences, one of the public university in Malaysia

The quality education is an essential element in economic, political and social development of any country. Therefore, enrollment forecasting is needed in higher education to assist the universities in the preparation of their educational frameworks including budgeting, provide all necessary facilities and planning the overall short and long term goals. This research study the pattern of students’ assessment and their academic performance in School of Mathematical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia. The target population is all undergraduate enrollment from 2016/2017 until 2018/2019 sessions. An absorbing Markov chain model is applied to study the absorption, retention and repetitive rates of the students by the academic programs and gender. The fundamental matrix is constructed to determine the expected duration of schooling before graduating. The enrollment projection is also estimated to study the probability of the performances of the students in the long run. In summary, this research addresses on the use of Markov chain model to describe the stochastic pattern of the enrollment and assessment of the students.

So They Might Tell Their Own Stories

For students studying journalism at HBCUs, there is a need for increased training in entrepreneurial journalism to offset the vastly changing media landscape and to train future media practitioners to become enterprising and to tell their own stories. However, in light of the ongoing challenges faced by many HBCUs, students receive a variety of entrepreneurial experiences ranging from moderate to sparing to none. In light of the new demands of the 21st century and the current shift to an entrepreneurship based economy, particularly within the media industries, this study using institutional theory examines the largest HBCUs by undergraduate enrollment to find that most schools with JMC programs offer either a course in entrepreneurship and or some business or entrepreneurship access on their campus. In order to ensure that all students who wish to become entrepreneurs receive adequate training during the foundational years of an undergraduate program, this study examines some of the barriers and challenges facing some universities and outlines suggestions and best practices.

'I'll be there for you'-- Comparative Insights on First-Year Experience (FYE) Policies of Belonging in the 21st Century

In the last 40 years undergraduate enrollment across the United States has more than doubled, yet graduation rates remain practically unchanged (Complete College America 2012). Increased pressure placed on first-year experience as a policy and practice to carve a pathway with strategies for navigating higher education internationally is how institutions in the 21stcentury grapple with challenges of retaining, progressing, and graduating their students (Nutt and Calderon, 2009). Despite the availability of scholarship and pervasiveness of policy which include first-year experience (FYE) initiatives, or a multiplex of “intentional academic and co-curricular efforts within and across postsecondary institutions” to emphasize academic and social adjustment (Koch 2007, 23), higher education globally is somewhat divided on equitable, inclusive understandings, approaches, and implementation when it comes to placing imporance on social adjustment over academic skills in 21st century education contexts.

The influence of early experiences and university environment for female students choosing geoscience programs: a case study at Universidad de Chile

This case study addresses the experiences of female undergraduate students in the geology and geophysics programs at Universidad de Chile. These majors are part of the Faculty of Physical Sciences and Mathematics (FCFM) and have a relatively large proportion of female representation compared to the other engineering and science majors at FCFM that are dominated by male students. We interviewed 12 female students in geoscience majors to understand (a) the reasons for choosing geoscience as a major and (b) their experiences both at FCFM and in geoscience in an institution with a strong masculine environment that aims to increase women's undergraduate enrollment. We found that the decision to pursue a geoscience career was made during high school, and they maintained this decision during the first years of college, which is heavily focused on mathematics and physics, with no geoscience-related courses. During this early period in college, known as the common core program, students perceived a hostile environment due to high academic demands and gender-based discrimination. Their experiences had a positive shift once they started the geoscience courses in their fifth or sixth semester. The relatively large proportion of female students in the geoscience majors at FCFM creates a positive environment in which the participants developed a sense of belonging in the geoscience community. Students also felt that the feminist movement during 2018 in Chile positively influenced their perspectives on their path at FCFM. These findings give insights for developing strategies to increase early interest, participation, and satisfaction of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines at various educational levels.