Enhancing the link between higher education and employment

This study aims to improve the efficiency of fiscal assistance programs for higher education by investigating those variables that influence college graduates’ employment rates. An empirical analysis of 2010–2011 higher education statistics shows that two variables – educational expenditure per student and the number of students per full-time faculty member – consistently and significantly affect college graduates’ employment rates, even after location and type of school are controlled. Although scholarship rates also affect employment rates positively, the number of students per industry–academe liaison officer does not have a statistically significant effect. Moreover, as educational expenditure per student or the student/faculty ratio increases beyond a certain level, graduate employment improves at an increasing rate. The two variables also affect the employment rate interactively. At a relatively higher level of per-student expenditure, employment rates increase even as the student/faculty ratio rises. However, at a relatively lower level of per-student expenditure, employment rates decline as the student/faculty ratio rises.The policy implication is that fiscal assistance programs for higher educational institutions should accord a much greater weight to these key variables when selecting and assessing institutional recipients.     

Boys left behind: The effects of summer camp and follow-up strategies on academic,personal, and social competencies

I use Danish administrative data to investigate the consequences of summer camp participation combined with a one-year follow-up program for disadvantaged boys on academic, personal, and social competencies. My identification strategy relies on individual-level panel data that enable me to observe outcomes before and after summer camp participation. Using a difference-in-differences strategy, I find overall positive effects on academic and personal competencies that reduce the gap to a matched group of boys with similar background characteristics by 40 to 80 percent. Further, I exploit a structural change in the follow-up program to evaluate how different mentoring strategies affect outcomes. In 2017, the follow-up program was changed from individual mentoring to group mentoring. Using a triple differences strategy, I find that group mentoring in the follow-up program improves personal and social competencies, suggesting that the format of the follow-up program is crucial for effects on personal and social competencies.     

“教育科研方法”在五年制师范课程实施中所面临的困境及解决对策

“教育科研方法”课程是师范生根据教师素质的要求必修的一门课程,但该课程在五年制师范专业实施的过程中却面临着教材不适宜、学生没兴趣、教学效果差等困境。针对这些问题,本文给出了相应的解决建议。     

‘Personal’and‘critical’? Exam criteria,engagement with texts,and real readers’ responses

This article explores how exam criteria require pupils to engage with texts at once 'personally' and 'critically'. It theorises this dichotomy, suggesting problems it presents in a classroom. Observing that dwindling opportunities for creative writing impede personal engagement, it considers the possibilities suggested by the imaginative writings of two pupils for resolving the dichotomy.     

基于知识服务与知识管理的教育信息化策略研究

文章深刻地阐述了实施知识服务与知识管理是实现教育信息化的最有效策略。为此,就要加强CFED建设,制定知识服务与知识管理的教育信息化解决方案,使我国教育信息化得以真正落实。     

对我国高等会计教育改革的几点思考

从会计教育环境变化及发展的要求看 ,高等会计教育的改革要从教育目标、课程设置、教学形式等方面入手。     

Imagining a future,living in the present and remembering the past

The remit for this short piece was to identify themes emerging from the articles in this edition by Julie McLeod, Duncan Waite and Eugenie Samier, to consider how these themes reflect on the current field, and to identify their ongoing relevance. Additionally, I was asked to consider the current challenges that the field is facing and what this means for research and journals such as this one. My short response is that our research has to matter. It has to matter to us as individuals so that what we do is worthwhile; it has to matter that we can provide rigorous research that is reliable so that it can inform policy makers and administrators; and it has to provide teachers and students with a greater understanding of why they are doing what they are being asked to do.     

Furthering alternative cultures of valuation in higher education research

The value of higher education is often implicit or assumed in educational research. The underlying and antecedent premises that shape and influence debates about value remain unchallenged, which perpetuates the dominant, but limiting, terms of the debate and fosters reductionism. The article proceeds on the premise that analyses of value are not self-supporting or self-referential but are embedded within prevailing cultures of valuation. It contends that challenging, and providing alternatives to, dominant narratives of higher education requires an appreciation of those cultures. It therefore highlights some of the existing cultures of valuation and their influence. It then proposes Sayer’s concept of lay normativity as a culture of valuation and discusses how it translates into the practices of research into higher education, specifically the practice of analysis. The discussion is animated by detecting the presence of lay normativity in the evaluative space of the capability approach.     

The operation of grade retention and educational inequality: who gets retained in Macao and why?

While the existence of a class, gender, or ethnic gap in educational attainment is well documented for many societies, how the practice of grade retention contributes to these patterns of educational inequality has been inadequately addressed. Given that grade retention is commonly practised in Macao, Macao is used as a case for illustration. Using data from PISA 2009 and a qualitative research project, we seek to demonstrate how inadequate state regulation could make possible the manipulation of grade retention institutionally and individually in Macao. This, in turn, illustrates how the specific contextualized structural operation of grade retention could serve as a mechanism for social differentiation and thus play a role in contributing to the observed educational inequality.