The effect of free primary education policy on late school entry in urban primary schools in Kenya

Late school entry is driven by several factors, one of the key ones being the cost barrier to schooling. Policies such as free primary education (FPE) that advocate for universal coverage are therefore partly aimed at removing the cost barrier. The Kenyan Government, like many in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), introduced FPE in 2003 with the aim of universalising access to schooling, which is one of the eight United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) it signed up to achieve. Based on a case study of four sites in Nairobi, the aim of this paper is to assess whether the FPE policy has affected late enrolment. The data used were collected by the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) and comprise a sub-sample of 4,325 first-graders during 2000–2005. The paper applies a probit model to assess the impact of the policy on the basis of marginal effects on the predicted probability of late enrolment. The results show that the FPE policy reduces the probability of late enrolment by 14 per cent. The reduction in probability of late enrolment was greater among children residing in slums (16 per cent) than those in non-slums (9 per cent). The main implication of the findings for policy makers is that cost barriers are a likely cause of over-age enrolment.     

How do technique and coordination change during learning of a whole-body task: Application to the upstart in gymnastics

ABSTRACT

When learning swinging skills on a bar there has been conflicting advice in the research literature regarding whether to coach the “gold standard” technique to novices. The present study aimed to determine how technique (joint angle time histories) and (inter-limb) coordination changed as novice gymnasts learned a fundamental gymnastics skill (the upstart). It was hypothesised that both technique and coordination would become more like an expert as learning progressed. Eight novice gymnasts, unable to perform an upstart, underwent four months of training, with the number of successful upstarts out of 10 recorded at the start and then every month subsequently. In the first and last sessions motion capture was used to determine joint kinematics. Root mean squared differences for the joint angle time histories and continuous relative phase at the shoulder and hip were calculated between the novices and an expert gymnast. As training progressed technique and coordination became more like the expert gymnast. The more successful novices were better able to time their actions within the swing than the less successful novices. Gymnastics coaches teach towards a “gold standard” technique since being successful at the skill is not the only goal, as considerations for future skill development are made.     

Assessment and Productive Research

This paper discusses the ways in which institutions and academics might creatively determine their plans for research, in the light of the assessment exercises.
It is difficult to know how to be systematic and optimistic about generating and completing research; most of the best efforts come from individuals' own initiatives rather than from the proddings of an assessment machine or a quality industry. That does not mean, however, that we should not try to think about research in a systematic fashion but the system does little to help us do so.
The second problem is that the policies underlying the assessment exercises are largely wrong, and designed to be purgative rather than developmental, reductionist rather than a contribution to creating a larger and more useful scientific base in this country.
The paper spends some time on these uncertainties, because they inevitably affect what academic groups just coming to terms with the research mission can and should do. It then discusses ways in which academics can build up their own academic mandates.     

Pluralisme linguistique au Liban

Sans résumé     

Information processing,evaluation, and utilization: The role of academic libraries in research and development (R & D) in Zambia

The study attempts to apply J.R. Bettman's consumer choice theory to the concept of information processing, evaluation and utilization within the present and future Zambian context. Central to this is the belief that information is a marketable commodity and is one that is critically essential in all activities relating to research and development (R & D) in Zambia. However, the author argues that unless there are discernible changes in the traditional attitudes and cultural values among Zambians, information processed and organized by academic libraries in Zambia will never be fully utilized even in research and development activities.     

The Galileo Affair from John Milton to John Paul II: Problems and Prospects

In an attempt to lay the groundwork for systematically studying the controversy generated by Galileo's trial in 1633, I begin by distinguishing the original 20-year episode from the subsequent 350-year controversy, and the historical aftermath of the original episode from the reflective commentary about it. The historical aftermath is sketched by a periodization into five phases, and the reflective commentary by defining and illustrating several historiographical types: surface-structural, deep-structural, evaluatively overcharged, pro- and anti-clerical, pro- and anti-Galilean, circumstantial, principled, one-dimensional, and multi-dimensional. Finally, I examine in somewhat greater detail Milton's comment in the Areopagitica (1644) and Pope John Paul II's alleged rehabilitation of Galileo (1979–1992).