scholarly journals Decline in the Reform of Law Teaching? The impact of policy reforms in tertiary education

1999 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vivienne Brand
Keyword(s):  
Tertiary Education ◽  
Policy Reforms ◽  
The Impact

scholarly journals Confronting the challenges of Journalism Education in Rwanda in the context of educational reforms

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 49
Author(s):  
Margaret Jjuuko ◽  
Joseph Njuguna
Keyword(s):  
Inclusive Education ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Tertiary Education ◽  
Approaches To Learning ◽  
Similar Rate ◽  
Educational Reforms ◽  
Journalism Education ◽  
Policy Reforms ◽  
Creative Commons ◽  
The Impact

Policy reforms aimed at improving access to and equity in tertiary education have meant that university classes are not only larger, but more diverse in terms of students’ competencies and experiences. Despite the increase in the size and diversity of student populations in universities, the financial, technological and human resources have not expanded at a similar rate, leaving academic programs struggling to improve the quality of educational experience, whilst teaching more students with less resources. This is particularly difficult in practice-based disciplines such as medicine, nursing and journalism, where coaching models and small-class learning experiences are seen as being the most effective way of nurturing work-ready graduates. Teaching journalism under these conditions is particularly problematic because of the dynamic changes being experienced across the media industries as a result of technological change and the changing media ecosystem. This article uses the University of Rwanda as a case study to examine the impact of tertiary education reforms on journalism education practices. Drawing on the ‘Practical Theory of Journalism Education’ and the ‘Educational Change Model’ perspectives, this paper calls for judicious implementation of educational reforms. It argues that by phasing the introduction of reforms, universities can better manage the change process in order to maintain quality educational experiences. However, this alone cannot ensure quality journalism education outcomes. Universities need to foster innovative teaching practices and approaches to learning in order to sustain quality when teaching large and diverse classes. Through in-depth interviews and focus group discussions, the findings illuminate how journalism education in Rwanda has changed its original orientation and pedagogy to include strategic initiatives, teaching innovations and expanded opportunities for students in response to policy reforms aimed at promoting an all-inclusive education sector.   How to cite this article:  JJUUKO, Margaret; NJUGUNA, Joseph. Confronting the challenges of Journalism Education in Rwanda in the context of educational reforms Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South. v. 3, n. 2, p. 49-67, Sept. 2019. Available at:   https://sotl-south-journal.net/?journal=sotls&page=article&op=view&path%5B%5D=92&path%5B%5D=46   This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Health Literacy of Parents and Carers in a Regional Community: A Cross-Sectional Study

2021 ◽  
pp. 0272684X2110225
Author(s):  
Matthew J. Leach ◽  
Sue Nichols ◽  
Sven Trenholm ◽  
Martin Jones
Keyword(s):  
Health Literacy ◽  
Primary School ◽  
Tertiary Education ◽  
Functional Health ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Healthy Development ◽  
School Aged Children ◽  
Australian Community ◽  
Literacy Scores ◽  
The Impact

Background Supporting a child’s healthy development is determined, in part, by a parent’s ability to seek, access, interpret and effectively utilize health information. This aspect of parenting draws on a set of skills referred to as health literacy. Objective To assess the level of health literacy among parents/carers in a regional South Australian community. Methods Parents/carers of primary school-aged children, residing in Whyalla, South Australia, were invited to complete the 13-item All Aspects of Health Literacy Survey. Results 155 parents/carers completed the survey (79% mothers). Most participants were English-speaking (97%), employed (62%) and had 2–3 children (62%), with 52% completing tertiary education. Median total health literacy scores were mostly in the moderate-high range (median 27, IQR 26,27), as were critical health literacy scores (median 7, IQR 6,8). Higher scores were reported for functional health literacy (median 8, IQR 7,9), communicative health literacy (median 9, IQR 8,9) and empowerment health literacy (median 4, IQR 3,5). Conclusions Our findings reveal modest levels of health literacy among a sample of parents/carers of primary school-aged children in a regional South Australian community. Further work is needed to understand the differential effect of parental health literacy on child health outcomes, and the types of strategies that may mitigate the impact of these barriers on a child’s healthy development.

Assessing design buildability through virtual reality from the perspective of construction students

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Don Amila Sajeevan Samarasinghe ◽  
Imelda Saran Piri
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Tertiary Education ◽  
Building Design ◽  
Assessment Process ◽  
Online Questionnaire ◽  
Sustainable Building ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Building Information ◽  
2D Drawing ◽  
The Impact

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to evaluate the impact of visual models on the ability of construction students to assess design buildability.Design/methodology/approachThe study engaged 45 construction students from one selected tertiary education institute in New Zealand. The data collection process involved meeting the students face-to-face and demonstrating the VR model to them, after which the students completed an online questionnaire and assessed design buildability using both 2D drawing and virtual reality (VR) models. To make this assessment, the participants considered a residential earth building modelled to promote sustainable building features. The assessment process required the participants to evaluate the design buildability of the same building design using a 2D drawing and a 3D VR model.FindingsThe study found that VR models have significant advantages for assessing design buildability. Students measured 16.80% higher average buildability with the 3D VR model compared to the 2D drawing. The participants in the evaluation felt that the visual model significantly improved the comprehensibility of complex designs, which helped identify and manage design buildability (overall, 83% of participants strongly supported this).Originality/valueThe paper showed construction digitisation such as VR, augmented reality and building information modelling is highly cooperative as it can easily be made available for online learning. Thus, the findings support construction educators use online-based VR learning to promote efficient teaching of design buildability to students.

scholarly journals The effects of grouping types on promoting critical thinking in EFL collaborative writing

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 108-120
Author(s):  
Nguyen Thi Minh Tram ◽  
Bui Thi Thuc Quyen
Keyword(s):  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Collaborative Learning ◽  
Tertiary Education ◽  
Collaborative Writing ◽  
Homogeneous Groups ◽  
Learning And Teaching ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Heterogeneous Groups ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Impact

Nurturing critical thinking (CT) has been acknowledged as a core objective of tertiary education, and drawn attention from academia of teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL), particularly in EFL argumentative writing. It has been claimed that collaborative learning which stimulates the active exchange of ideas within small groups not only increases interest among the participants but also promotes critical thinking. One of the important aspects of learning and teaching through collaboration is the group composition or grouping “who with whom”. The present study was an attempt to investigate the impact of homogeneous and heterogeneous groupings on critical thinking in collaborative writing. Having been required to write an argumentative essay as a pre-test, 75 participants, who were categorized by their prior critical thinking levels, were assigned into three group types: heterogeneous, homogeneous high and homogeneous low groups. As a consequence, four types of students were considered their improvement before and after the experiment: high-level students in heterogeneous groups, lowlevel students in heterogeneous groups, high-level students in homogeneous groups, low-level students in homogeneous groups. The results demonstrated that learners improved their critical thinking level through collaborative writing, whether working with stronger or weaker peers. However, heterogeneous grouping showed superiority over homogeneous grouping at the low level. The results revealed that cooperative learning could be especially beneficial for low students. It is hoped that the findings of the present study will give teachers deep insights into group compositions in collaborative learning courses, and will help them make better group experiences for students.

scholarly journals Moral Suasion or Policy Reforms? How to Tackle Sectarian Violence in Pakistan: The Case Study of Gilgit-Baltistan

2019 ◽  
Vol IV (II) ◽  
pp. 291-297
Author(s):  
Saranjam Muhammad Baig
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
Peace Building ◽  
Market Failures ◽  
Policy Reforms ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
Religious Conflicts ◽  
Sectarian Conflict ◽  
Implementation Failure ◽  
Gilgit Baltistan ◽  
The Impact

The existing literature in social sciences and humanities analyzing root causes of sectarian and religious conflicts focus mostly on micro-factors. The inability of market and state factors to control sectarian conflict for last seven decades remains understudied by the contemporary literature. This article aims at filling that gap and seeks to identify certain market and government failures that have implications on sectarian and religious conflicts. More specifically, it identifies four market failures namely asymmetries of information, externalities, equity and public goods and three government failures, which include democracy failure, bureaucratic failure and implementation failure. In contrast to the literature shedding light on the impact and gravity of sectarian and religious violence in the country, the purpose here remains to highlight important aspects of public policy reforms for peace making and peace building. This article, based on the aforementioned market and government failures, suggests a whole new set of policy reforms.

scholarly journals Coordinated Markets, School-to-Work Linkages, and Labor Market Outcomes in the European Union

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Albert DiPrete ◽  
Joanna Chae
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Educational Outcomes ◽  
Tertiary Education ◽  
Level Structure ◽  
Labor Market Outcomes ◽  
School To Work ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Market Outcomes ◽  
Skill Formation ◽  
The Impact

A large literature in both sociology and political science has theorized about the importance of skill formation systems for macroeconomic performance, for the transition from school to work, and for labor market outcomes. However, consensus on how countries fit into these theoretical groupings has been difficult, and empirical evidence that these groupings matter has been elusive. Focusing on labor market outcomes across twenty-one European countries, this paper demonstrates that the strength of linkage between specific educational outcomes and occupational destinations is an important source of these institutional effects. Stronger linkage is generally associated with higher relative earnings and greater chances of employment, though heterogeneity exists both across age and gender groupings and across educational levels. Country-level structure matters because it is related to the local linkage strength of pathways, even as there is considerable heterogeneity within countries in the coherence of pathways from educational outcomes to occupations. Pathway effects clearly matter, particularly in how they shape the consequences of working in an occupation that is well matched to one's educational level and field of study. The strongest evidence for macro-structural effects concerns the impact of macro-structure on the earnings gap between well-matched and not-well matched workers with non-tertiary and with upper tertiary education. The findings suggest that policies to improve labor market outcomes do not require wholesale transformations of a country's skill formation system, but instead can focus on improving pathway coherence one pathway at a time.

scholarly journals The impact of education tax and investment in human capital on economic growth in Nigeria

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-86
Author(s):  
Abubakar Aminu ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Human Capital ◽  
Tertiary Education ◽  
Distributed Lag ◽  
Distributed Lag Model ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Lag Model ◽  
The Government ◽  
Capital Development ◽  
The Impact

This paper investigated the impact of education tax and investment in human capital on economic growth in Nigeria utilizing the Non-Linear Autoregressive Distributed Lag Model of cointegration covering the period of 25 years from 1995 to 2019. The findings reveal that education tax and investment in human capital have positive and significant effect on the growth of the Nigerian economy over the sampled period. The paper recommends that in order to boost the economy, Nigeria would need to, among other policy frameworks, provide a suitable environment for ensuring macro-economic stability through effective utilization of income from education tax that will encourage increased investment in human capital in the public sector. In addition to income from education tax, for effective and speedy economic growth and development in Nigeria, the government, beneficiaries (students/parents), employers of labor and other stakeholders in the society should share the responsibility for financing primary, secondary and tertiary education, so as to provide a solid foundation for human capital development. However, as revealed in this paper, the contribution of education tax and investment in human capital is most likely to be realized over a long-run period than in the short term. Keywords: Education Tax; Investment; Human capital; Economic growth

scholarly journals The Determinants of International Student Demand in New Zealand and the OECD

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Logan Page
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
International Students ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
International Student ◽  
Tertiary Education ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
University Education ◽  
Export Market ◽  
Student Demand ◽  
The Impact

<p>Tertiary education, once a purely domestic affair, has become an increasingly globalised industry over previous decades. Whilst the international sector has grown to being New Zealand's fourth largest export market (Ministry of Education, 2016), there is a lack of credible research on the demand of international students.    This thesis aims to provide a greater understanding of the determinants of international student demand, both in New Zealand and internationally. I firstly provide a descriptive analysis of the trends in the international student market for New Zealand and 27 OECD countries. Secondly, I use a fixed-effects approach to analyse the demand of international students within New Zealand, using fees data at the course-by-university level. Thirdly, I then generalise this approach to the international market to provide an analysis of the demand for international students travelling to the OECD.    The findings from these analyses imply that the demand for international university education is relatively inelastic. The impact of a marginal increase in fees decreases the number of EFTS/students at a proportion of less than one. Furthermore, this effect is generally not statistically distinguishable from zero.</p>

A brief, daily, online mental health and wellbeing intervention for university staff during the COVID-19 pandemic: Program description and outcomes using a mixed methods design (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Parker ◽  
Sarah Dash ◽  
Matthew Bourke ◽  
Rhiannon Patten ◽  
Melinda Craike ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Longitudinal Research ◽  
Tertiary Education ◽  
Professional Staff ◽  
Metropolitan Region ◽  
Health Promotion Program ◽  
University Staff ◽  
Symptoms Of Depression ◽  
Personal Functioning ◽  
The Impact

BACKGROUND The unprecedented changes and isolation measures to contain the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) have had multiple psychological and social impacts, with implications for professional and personal functioning. Evidence-informed interventions that can be rapidly implemented under pandemic conditions to support mental health during such times were urgently needed. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to determine the acceptability and preliminary outcomes of a daily online mental health promotion program for tertiary education staff during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS The ‘VU Elevenses’ program was delivered as an uncontrolled intervention at Victoria University (VU) in the western metropolitan region of Melbourne, Australia. In April 2020, an email invitation was sent to all academic and professional staff inviting them to: 1) participate in the program; and 2) opt-in to the research component. The ‘VU Elevenses’ program provided 10-15-minute micro-interventions comprising lifestyle and wellbeing strategies to promote mental health, via an online meeting platform, at 11am each weekday. A mixed-method approach was used to evaluate the program, combining structured questionnaires with semi-structured interviews to investigate the experiences of staff who participated in the program. RESULTS Between 16-90 participants provided weekly program feedback. A total of 106 university staff opted into the longitudinal research component and 10 staff participated in the interviews. Participants reported high levels of satisfaction with sessions and perceived benefits for mental health. Approximately one quarter of participants reported moderate to severe symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress at baseline, with significant reductions in these symptoms in the first seven weeks of the program, corresponding with easing in mandatory isolation (‘lockdown’) restrictions. However, symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress all increased when lockdown measures were reintroduced, but not to the same levels as the initial lockdown period. Overall changes in depression and anxiety from baseline to the end of the program were explained by changes in COVID related distress, whereas changes in self-compassion explained changes in stress. CONCLUSIONS We show that it is feasible and acceptable to develop and deliver a program of brief interventions in a timely manner, using a simple and accessible online platform. Although participation in the program was initially associated with reduced symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress, participants’ mental health worsened with the reintroduction of a ‘lockdown’ period. However, as symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress did not return to levels observed at the start of the VU Elevenses program, participation in the uncontrolled intervention may have offered a protective benefit against the impact of the second significant lockdown period. CLINICALTRIAL N/A

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