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272. U.S. Education Reform and National Security
- Author:
- Joel I. Klein, Condoleezza Rice, and Julia Levy
- Publication Date:
- 03-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- Mission Statement. The Council on Foreign Relations is an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher dedicated to being a resource for its members, government officials, business executives, journalists, educators and students, civic and religious leaders, and other interested citizens in order to help them better understand the world and the foreign policy choices facing the United States and other countries. Founded in 1921, the Council takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. The Council carries out its mission by: Maintaining a diverse membership, including special programs to promote interest and develop expertise in the next generation of foreign policy leaders; Convening meetings at its headquarters in New York and in Washington, DC, and other cities where senior government officials, members of Congress, global leaders, and prominent thinkers come together with Council members to discuss and debate major international issues; Supporting a Studies Program that fosters independent research, enabling Council scholars to produce articles, reports, and books and hold roundtables that analyze foreign policy issues and make concrete policy recommendations; Publishing Foreign Affairs, the preeminent journal of international affairs and U.S. foreign policy; Sponsoring Independent Task Forces that produce reports with both findings and policy prescriptions on the most important foreign policy topics; and Providing up-to-date information and analysis about world events and American foreign policy on its website, CFR.org.
- Topic:
- Economics, Education, Globalization, and National Security
- Political Geography:
- United States, New York, America, and Washington
273. Globalization and Development : Current Trends
- Author:
- Shantanu Chakrabarti (ed) and Kingshuk Chatterjee (ed)
- Publication Date:
- 04-2012
- Content Type:
- Course Pack
- Institution:
- Institute of Foreign Policy Studies, University of Calcutta
- Abstract:
- This volume of essays comes out of a seminar organized by the Institute of Foreign Policy Studies, Calcutta University as a part of its UNAI program. The United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI), officially launched with a two-day conference in New York City, 18–19 November 2010, is a UN global initiative that seeks to align institutions of higher learning with the United Nations in actively supporting ten universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, literacy, sustainability and conflict resolution. The Academic Impact also asks each participating college or university to actively demonstrate support of at least one of those principles each year. Academic Impact is a program of the Outreach Division of the Department of Public Information. It is open to all institutions of higher education granting degrees or their equivalent, as well as bodies whose substantive responsibilities relate to the conduct of research. It's essential frame of reference is: To bring into association with the United Nations, and with each other, institutions of higher learning throughout the world; To provide a mechanism for such institutions to commit themselves to the fundamental precepts driving the United Nations mandate, in particular the realization of the universally determined Millennium Development Goals; To serve as a viable point of contact for ideas and proposals relevant to the United Nations mandate; To promote the direct engagement of institutions of higher education in programs, projects and initiatives relevant to this mandate.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, Education, Human Rights, and United Nations
- Political Geography:
- New York and Calcutta
274. The Negative Consequences of Overambitious Curricula in Developing Countries
- Author:
- Lant Pritchett and Amanda Beatty
- Publication Date:
- 04-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- Learning profiles that track changes in student skills per year of schooling often find shockingly low learning gains. Using data from three recent studies in South Asia and Africa, we show that a majority of students spend years of instruction with no progress on basics. We argue shallow learning profiles are in part the result of curricular paces moving much faster than the pace of learning. To demonstrate the consequences of a gap between the curriculum and student mastery, we construct a simple, formal model, which portrays learning as the result of a match between student skill and instructional levels, rather than the standard (if implicit) assumption that all children learn the same from the same instruction. A simulation shows that two countries with exactly the same potential learning could have massively divergent learning outcomes, just because of a gap between curricular and actual pace—and the country which goes faster has much lower cumulative learning. We also show that our simple simulation model of curricular gaps can replicate existing experimental findings, many of which are otherwise puzzling. Paradoxically, learning could go faster if curricula and teachers were to slow down.
- Topic:
- Development, Education, and Poverty
- Political Geography:
- Africa and South Asia
275. The Puzzling Decline in Rural Women's Labor Force Participation in India: A Reexamination
- Author:
- Daniel Neff, Kunal Sen, and Veronika Kling
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- German Institute of Global and Area Studies
- Abstract:
- Between 2004/2005 and 2009/2010 there was a sharp fall in female labor force participation (LFP) in rural India. Why did this occur? We look at the four standard explanations: that more women in rural areas are now pursuing higher education and are therefore not available for work (education effect), that household incomes are rising quickly enough that there is a tendency for women to withdraw from the labor force to attend to domestic duties (income effect), that employment opportunities for women are decreasing, and that social and cultural factors may be interacting with these three factors and amplifying their effects. Our findings suggest that the decline in rural women's LFP could potentially be due to an income effect and partly due to an education effect. We find no evidence of changes in employment opportunities or of social and cultural interaction effects that could explain the decline in rural female LFP.
- Topic:
- Economics, Education, Gender Issues, Social Stratification, Labor Issues, and Culture
- Political Geography:
- India
276. Learn by Doing: Expanding International Internships/Work Abroad Opportunities for U.S. STEM Students
- Author:
- Debbie G. Donohue and Sabeen Altaf
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Institute of International Education
- Abstract:
- Technological innovation is a driving force in every national economy worldwide, including the United States. The U.S. economy requires innovative programs to educate, develop, and train the next generation of globally competent scientists and engineers. Recent studies have identified a pressing need for a U.S. workforce that is more globally aware, more competent in foreign languages and intercultural skills, and more familiar with international business norms and behaviors. In the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), however, few academic programs provide adequate training and educational preparation in these areas. According to the 2011 IIE Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange, 3.9 percent of U.S. students who received credit for study or work abroad were engineers, while math and computer science students made up only 1.5 percent of U.S. students studying abroad. These two majors represented the smallest share of U.S. students abroad, other than those majoring in agriculture. While close to 10 percent of U.S. undergraduates study abroad before graduation, less than 4 percent of engineering students participate in study abroad programs; as a result, very few are gaining the global education they will need to be competitive professionals in the global workforce.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Education, and Immigration
- Political Geography:
- United States
277. Valuing Study Abroad: The Global Mandate for Higher Education
- Author:
- Scott J. Freidheim
- Publication Date:
- 03-2012
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Institute of International Education
- Abstract:
- Scott Freidheim spoke at the British Academy's International Conference in London in March 2012, presenting U.S. perspectives on study abroad as part of an international panel. At the conference, the British Academy and the University Council of Modern Languages (UCML) released a joint position statement, Valuing the Year Abroad, that advocated support for funding a third year abroad for British undergraduate students and that drew on case studies from a survey they conducted among study abroad alumni. With representatives from the United States, China, and Germany, the international panel was invited to discuss British government and higher education policy on study abroad, and other countries' policies and best practices in study abroad.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Education, and Globalization
- Political Geography:
- United States, China, London, and Germany
278. Gaza Five Years On: Hamas Settles In
- Author:
- Nathan J. Brown
- Publication Date:
- 06-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- As political upheavals spread over much of the Middle East and North Africa in 2011, regimes throughout the region were shaken and a few fell. But in both the West Bank and Gaza, a soft authoritarianism that has provoked uprisings elsewhere has only been further entrenching itself.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, Civil Society, Democratization, Education, and Islam
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, Arabia, Gaza, and Cameroon
279. Raising Awareness Together: How Can the EU Engage with Civil Society to Promote Sustainable Lifestyles?
- Author:
- Ekaterina Vladimirova
- Publication Date:
- 06-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Istituto Affari Internazionali
- Abstract:
- Individual behaviour plays a key role in resolving the climate change problem. The main obstacle for such behavioural change is often poor public knowledge about the ethical dimension of climate change and about the practical solutions available to individuals in order to make informed choices. Promoting sustainable lifestyles should top the political agenda in Europe. In this light, this paper suggests how the EU could engage with civil society to promote sustainable lifestyles through joint media campaigns, by establishing local sustainability centres and by working together to change educational standards. This collaboration would benefit from knowledge and expertise exchange, lower transaction costs and, most importantly, it would increase public trust in the quest for sustainability.
- Topic:
- Civil Society, Climate Change, Education, Environment, and Mass Media
- Political Geography:
- Europe
280. Resource mobilisation and fundraising in basic schools: A case study of Copperbelt and North-Western province
- Author:
- Malunga Syacumpi
- Publication Date:
- 04-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Zambia Institute for Policy Analysis and Research (ZIPAR)
- Abstract:
- Like many other countries, Zambia removed a major barrier to access to primary education when it abolished user fees for Grades 1–7 in 2002. The resulting fall in basic schools’ income, however, has not been relieved by adequate government resources trickling down through the complex school funding system. In an attempt to address their funding problems, some schools have adopted fundraising ventures as a way of supplementing government resources. The successes and practicability of implementation of such ventures remain to be seen. There is a lack of information about the adequacy of such measures and no institutional framework to guide their implementation. This study explores the range of resource mobilisation and fundraising activities adopted by basic schools. It looks into how basic schools are raising funds and how these funds are being utilised based on a sample of 30 basic schools (15 each from Copperbelt and North-Western provinces). The research was conducted through questionnaires with head teachers and school accountants/bursars as well as interviews conducted at the provincial and district level.
- Topic:
- Development, Education, Natural Resources, Infrastructure, and Mobility
- Political Geography:
- Africa and Zambia