A Rationale for Public and School Library Cooperation in Sierra Leone

This article explores the need for public and school library cooperation in Sierra Leone. Establishing a library service to meet user needs and keeping it relevant is one of the important tasks of professional librarians. In Sierra Leone, however, an increase in enrollment in schools, decreasing library budgets, and the information explosion have had grave consequences in the management of libraries, be they special, school, or public. If public and school libraries are to provide satisfactory services to the nation's young, there is every need for the establishment of greater public and school library cooperation.     

Impact of teachers’ professional development on school improvement—an analysis at Bangladesh standpoint

This study seeks to describe the teachers’ professional development activities in Bangladesh and explores the hypotheses about the relationship between teachers’ traditional professional development activities and school improvement. Data from a representative sample of City secondary schools from Bangladesh (n = 127) were gathered through questionnaires from 127 principals and 694 teachers. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was used in this research. This study found significant impacts of some of teachers’ professional development activities on school improvement. Also found that the maximum school improvement can be achieved if schools put more emphasis on teachers’ collaboration, in-service training and classroom observation and less emphasis on individual action enquiry. The findings of this study provide important information for the policy makers, educational managers and especially for the headmasters and teachers concerned with the improvement of teachers’ quality in secondary schools of Bangladesh. This study adopts a concurrent approach of data collection and analysis.     

Strategies for effective faculty involvement in online activities aimed at promoting critical thinking and deep learning

Highly-traditional education systems that mainly offer what is known as direct instruction usually result in graduates with a surface approach to learning rather than a deep one. What is meant by deep-learning is learning that involves critical analysis, the linking of ideas and concepts, creative problem solving, and application (Harvey & Kamvounias, Higher Education Research & Development, 27(1), 31–41, doi: 10.1080/07294360701658716 2008)- all of which prepare graduates for life in the 21st Century. It is precisely this kind of deep learning that the current national educational reform initiatives in Bahrain are trying to promote, in contrast to what has usually been offered historically. Unfortunately, this noble aim is not always achieved and teaching methods need to be examined and developed, since there definitely are a lot of alternatives to stereotype lecturing in academic institutions (Annerstedt, Garza, Huang-DeVoss, Lindh & Rydmark, Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 10(2), 107–127, 2010). One such alternative suggested in this paper is that of increasing faculty involvement with students in online contexts, as a means for promoting critical thinking and deep learning.     

Achievement-oriented beliefs and their relation to academic expectations and school achievement among Qatari students

This study investigated the relation between motivational goals and university intentions, school valuing and school achievement. The premise of this study is that motivational goals play a key role in academic values and achievement. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to establish the construct validity of the motivational measures drawn from the Inventory of School Motivation (ISM): mastery (effort and task), performance (competition and social power), social solidarity (social concern and affiliation), extrinsic (praise and token). A set of eight regression analyses was conducted to examine the relations among these eight motivational measures, future goals to attend college, the value of school and six school subjects. Eight regression equations revealed that effort and task were the most significant predictors of the dependent variables of university intention, valuing school and school achievement scores. Students in Qatar exhibited ‘effort and task’ in goal motivation in relation to students’ beliefs regarding future academic goals and achievement scores in school subjects. As Qatar is a highly gender-segregated society, analyses were also conducted by gender.     

Contextual influences on sources of academic self-efficacy: a validation with secondary school students of Kerala

This study investigates the theorized sources of Academic Self-Efficacy among the higher secondary school students of Kerala, India. Mastery Experience in the form of Academic Achievement, vicarious experience in the form of School Image and Social Persuasion in the form of Parental Encouragement are included as the predictor variables of Academic Self-Efficacy. Participants in the present study were 700 higher secondary school students of Kerala, selected using stratified random sampling. The findings of the study confirm the theorized correlation of Academic Self-Efficacy with previous achievement, vicarious experience (school image) and persuasory information (parental encouragement). In the total sample, the percent of variance in Academic Self-Efficacy that is predictable by the three-predictor variables is nearly one quarter (23.83?%). School Image is the best contributing variable (9.42?%) followed by Mastery Experience (8.67?%) and then by Parental Encouragement (5.74?%). The findings shows that apart from cultural differences, locale and gender difference also exist in sources of Academic Self-Efficacy. The superiority of School Image over Mastery Experience in predicting Academic Self-Efficacy is different from that found in the West, theoretically and empirically. In India, self-efficacy beliefs of youngsters continue to depend more on social and domestic factors than personal experience and mastery.     

Effect of seedling age and water depth on morphological and physiological aspects of transplanted rice under high temperature

INTRODUCTION Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is one of the most im-portant crops in Pakistan. It is the third largest crop interms of area and production after wheat and cotton.Although rice in Pakistan is consuming large acreage,Pakistan is still far behind other rice producingcountries. The average yield is very low (2 t/ha) ascompared to Egypt (8.4 t/ha) and USA (6.6 t/ha).There are many reasons for this low yield. The mostimportant are high temperature (40?50 °C), low hu-midity at …     

Some reflections on education for rural development

The article stresses the significance of anti-poverty oriented rural development for developing countries and the need to identify the educational implications of such a strategy. Some of the assumptions derived from contemporary experience in development, and in particular rural development, which are vital for understanding and formulating the role of education, are presented and analysed. The indicators used in the measurement of anti-poverty rural development bring clarity to the concept of interlinking development and education in concrete terms. Some features of education for rural development are discussed and the significance of four areas of educational activities underscored, namely, primary education, functional literacy, human resources development and education related to the world of work. The article is concluded by stressing the need for establishing firm linkages between educational and developmental infrastructures with special emphasis on nonformal education and its flexibility of approach.

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Zusammenfassung Der Nachdruck in diesem Artikel liegt auf der Bedeutung, die der armutsbekämpfenden Orientierung ländlicher Entwicklungsprogramme beizumessen ist, sowie auf der Notwendigkeit festzustellen, welche Implikationen sich aus einer solchen Strategie für das Erziehungswesen ergeben. Einige für das Verständnis und die Formulierung seiner Rolle entscheidende Voraussetzungen, abgeleitet aus neueren Erfahrungen mit Entwicklungsprogrammen, insbesondere ländlichen, werden vorgestellt und analysiert. Die für die Bemessung armutsbekämpfender ländlicher Entwicklung benutzten Indikatoren bringen auch Klarheit in das Konzept einer konkreten Verbindung von Entwicklung und Erziehung. Dann bespricht der Autor einige Besonderheiten der Erziehung für ländliche Entwicklung und unterstreicht dabei die Wichtigkeit von vier Gebieten der Erziehungsarbeit: Primarerziehung, funktionelle Alphabetisierung, Entwicklung von Arbeitskräften und auf die Arbeitswelt bezogene Erziehung. Zum Schluß hebt der Verfasser die Notwendigkeit hervor, die Infrastrukturen für Erziehung und Entwicklung fest miteinander zu verbinden, mit besonderer Betonung der nicht-formalen Erziehung und ihrer Flexibilität.

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Résumé L'auteur de cet article met en évidence la signification du développement rurale envisagé comme une lutte contre la pauvreté dans les pays en développement et il souligne la nécessité de découvrir les implications de l'éducation dans une telle stratégie. Il présente et analyse quelques-unes des inductions tirées de l'expérience contemporaine du développement, en particulier du développement rurale, indispensables à la compréhension et à la formulation du rôle de l'éducation. Les indicateurs utilisés pour mesurer le développement rural anti-pauvreté apportent aussi une clarté au principe de conjugaison de l'éducation et du développement en termes concrets. Ensuite l'auteur examine quelques traits de l'éducation pour le développement rural, mettant l'accent sur l'importance de quatre zones d'activités éducatives, à voir, l'enseignement primaire, l'alphabétisation fonctionnelle, le développement des ressources humaines et l'éducation reliée au monde du travail. Enfin il souligne la nécessité d'établir des liens solides entre les infrastructures de l'éducation et celles du développement, en accentuant particulièrement l'éducation non-formelle et la flexibilité de ces moyens.

     

阿拉伯国家高等教育的新进展

文章主要介绍了阿拉伯国家高等教育的最新进展，并就其未来发展应给予关注的问题做了初步探讨。