CHURCH’S RESPONSE AS NOSTRUM TO THE CHALLENGES OF STUDENT ACTIVISM MOVEMENT IN NIGERIAN HIGHER INSTITUTION OF LEARNING

Students’ populace serves as a key stakeholder in education which cannot be disregarded in decision making. Also, education impacts students with knowledge, skills and empowerment to be active in developing the society, part of the educational structure in higher education is student activism movement. Students Activism movement in higher institution of learning performs these activities to the student’s populace and the society - Student Welfare, Academic development, Social Activities, Community Service, Infrastructural Development and others. Moreover, the benefits students derive in this movement are – Confidence booster, enables the student to get involved in reformation, building new connections, discovery of hidden talents and developing ability to move out of comfort zone. However, the movement is faced with diverse challenges that combat its original intention. Such challenges are – Cultism, Examination malpractice, Indiscipline, Insecurity, Frequent harassment and others. Furthermore, nostrum to the challenges of this movement is the intervention of the faith-based organization like the Church. The church is therefore, saddled with the responsibilities of constant enlightenment to the prospective students on the activity of the movement. The writer thus recommends the following to combat the challenges of student activism movement in the Nigerian higher Institution of learning - Student Activism movement should return to its original purpose of existence as enumerated by its founder, government should create enabling school climate for the students of higher institutions in Nigeria, the church should give proper enlightenment to the prospective students on the activities of student in the higher institution of learning. KEYWORDS: Student Activism, Church, Education.

Mental Distress, Help Seeking, and Use of Health Services Among University Students. The SHoT-Study 2018, Norway

Background: Existing studies have documented high levels of mental distress in University and college students, complemented with poor help-seeking behavior. Colleges and universities offer a unique setting to address mental health problems that might overcome some of the most prominent barriers to help-seeking.Objective: We aim to describe the use of campus-based health care services and health services available in the near-by community among students in Norwegian student welfare organizations. We compare health care service use between non-local (in-movers) and local students, students at large and small welfare organizations, and students with severe and medium-low levels of mental distress.Methods: Data stem from the SHoT study (Students' Health and Well-being Study), a national survey from 2018 of all students aged 18–35 undertaking higher education in Norway. Mental distress was assessed using the Hopkins Symptom Checklist-25 (HSCL-25), and we also obtained self-report data on use of health care services. Data on health care services offered at Norwegian student welfare organizations was obtained from semi-structural telephone interviews.Results: Non-local students used health care services that are low threshold, easily accessible and close to campus (health clinics and services organized by the student welfare organization) to a larger extent than local students. Students with symptoms of severe mental distress used almost all types of health services more than other students. We found big differences in reported use of health services in large and small organizations, yet these differences mirrored services available, and not necessarily student demand and preferences.Conclusion: Services offered by the student welfare organizations seem to play a particularly important role for non-local students and students reporting symptoms of severe mental distress.

STUDENT WELFARE SERVICES IN HIGHER EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION (HEI) IN PUDUCHERRY: A STUDY

Background: Student Welfare is an integral part of the Educational system. It takes care of the physical, mental, academic, non-academic well-being of the students on campus. Higher Educational Institutions essentially cater to the young population above 16 years and they constitute a resourceful and a vibrant population of the nation. If this period of life is shaped and moulded appropriately and holistically, they turn out to be an asset of the country or otherwise a liability. Objectives: The aim of this study is to understand and explore the nature and kind of student welfare services prevalent in the Higher Educational Institution in Puducherry. It also comprehends the activities, policies and practices as part of Student Welfare Services in Higher Educational Institution in Puducherry. Nature and Study design: The study is Quantitative, and Descriptive design is adopted. Materials and Methods: The participants (n=57) were selected randomly from one college, nal year undergraduate male and female students of Puducherry district of Puducherry UT were the universe. Self-Administered Questionnaire was used to collect the data. The students were assured of condentiality and anonymity and were requested to answer the questions truthfully. Results: This paper addresses the initial results from the pilot study of the research titled “A Study of the Student Welfare Services prevalent in Higher Educational Institutions in Union Territory of Puducherry” funded by ICSSR-IMPRESS Research Project (Ministry of Human Resource Development, Delhi). The study contributes to the existing knowledge on the prevalence of student welfare services in (HEIs) in Puducherry district. Conclusions: The study comes up with the nature of student welfare services that are prevailing in the Higher Educational Institution and how it adds to the student's overall wellbeing. The results enhance our understanding of the nature of other HEIs and provide recommendations on the same. Very few studies have been undertaken in this realm and this will certainly be an addition to the already existing literature related on the same

STUDENT WELFARE SERVICES IN HIGHER EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS DURING GLOBAL PANDEMIC: ISSUES AND CHALLENGES

Students in Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) have undergone a drastic change in the past decades. The HEIs have witnessed expansion and the younger population are more socially and culturally diverse. There has also been a sharp rise in the number of International students. In the Global Pandemic, the students in HEIs have experienced a serious catastrophe. In this purview, it is vital to discuss about the difculties faced by the students, the issues and challenges they came across, the student welfare services and its encouragement towards students' academic and psycho-social wellbeing. Secondary research design is adopted in the study.

Optimal Priority-Based Allocation Mechanisms

This paper develops a tractable methodology for designing an optimal priority system for assigning agents to heterogeneous items while accounting for agents’ choice behavior. The space of mechanisms being optimized includes deferred acceptance and top trading cycles as special cases. In contrast to previous literature, I treat the inputs to these mechanisms, namely the priority distribution of agents and quotas of items, as parameters to be optimized. The methodology is based on analyzing large market models of one-sided matching using techniques from revenue management and solving a certain assortment planning problem whose objective is social welfare. I apply the methodology to school choice and show that restricting choices may be beneficial to student welfare. Moreover, I compute optimized choice sets and priorities for elementary school choice in Boston. This paper was accepted by Gabriel Weintraub, revenue management and market analytics.

Optimizing for Distributional Goals in School Choice Problems

I investigate three goals of school choice: welfare, encouraging neighborhood schools, and diversity. I use optimization problems to find the best stable and incentive compatible match for any combination of these objectives. These problems assume there is a continuum of students and school seats, which allows me to describe the incentive compatibility conditions in a tractable form. I prove that the set of stable matchings is generically continuous in the distribution of students and the school capacities, which implies that the characterization of the possible stable matches in the continuum model approximates the set of stable matches in a matching market with a large, but finite, number of students. I then apply my framework to data from Boston Public Schools. If the mechanism conditions on demographics, the improvement (relative to the status quo) in student welfare is equivalent to moving 291 students (out of 3,479) to schools one rank higher in their preference lists. In contrast, if the mechanism does not condition on demographics, the welfare improvement is equivalent to moving only 25.1 students to schools one rank higher. Improvements in the distributional goals can be made (e.g., increasing enrollment in neighborhood schools by 50%) without reducing welfare or diversity. This paper was accepted by Gabriel Weintraub, revenue management and market analytics.

EFEKTIVITAS UNIT KEGIATAN MAHASISWA RIJAL RISET DALAM PENINGKATAN KARYA TULIS ILMIAH (Studi Analisis Mahasiswa Prodi Hadits STDIIS Jember)

Extracurricular activities are student activities that include reasoning and science, interests and hobbies, efforts to improve student welfare and social service for the community. In this regard, STDI Imam Syafi'i Jember participated in developing the interests and talents and potential of students to be able to compete in the era of globalization. One of the student activity units formed was the Research Rijal Student Activity Unit. Research on this UKM is needed. The reason is because the making of scientific papers that are the product of this unit is a hard thing for students in general.This study aims to explain the cause of students lack of interest in making scientific papers, factors driving students to join Research Rijal UKM, and the contribution of these UKM in improving scientific writing. This research uses a qualitative approach with the type of case study. Data is described descriptively. The analysis used is inductive analysis. Based on its scope, this study takes one site. Data was collected from several documents, observations, and interviews with 17 informants. The main informants in this study were 13 students of the Hadith Sciences Study Program. Then supplemented with additional informants from 3 Ahwal Syakhsiyah Study Program students and P3M supervisors.This research produces several conclusions. First, that the cause of students' lack of interest in making scientific papers is because: (a) students are less interested in writing, (b) lack of ideas and ideas, and (c) the rules for writing scientific papers that are relatively complicated. Second, the factors driving the students of the Hadith Science Study Program to join Research Rijal UKM include: (a) they want to learn the methodology of writing scientific papers, (b) foster interest in reading, (c) practice critical habits of scientific papers, and (d ) develop general writing skills. Third, the contribution of UKM Rijal Research includes (a) giving special lectures to UKM members on how to make good scientific journals and (b) providing further guidance in the completion of scientific papers.