Suchergebnisse

[eng]Differences in the division of education responsibilities between tiers of government and in the degree of autonomy the latter have to take decisions and raise their own revenues could imply differences in the level of efficiency with which these responsibilities are carried out. The aim of this study is, therefore, to analyze the effects of decentralization on the efficiency of educational policy, by examining the way in which different decentralization structures can have differential effects and by exploring the channels via which decentralization can affect educational outcomes. To achieve this, I first analyze the effects of a partial fiscal decentralization reform introduced in Spain at the beginning of the eighties, when educational responsibilities were devolved to regions that were not, however, granted any decision-making power for raising their own taxes. I believe that this study, reported in Chapter 2, makes a relevant contribution to the scarce empirical evidence gathered to date about the effects of decentralization on educational outcomes. First, this is the first study to analyze these effects in the context of a partial fiscal decentralization, which enables me to provide empirical evidence about one of the main points of debate in the fiscal federalism literature. Second, the way in which education policy has been decentralized in Spain, with a set of regions receiving educational powers at the beginning of the eighties and the remaining regions having to wait until the end of the nineties to receive the same powers, provides a unique benchmark against which to conduct a consistent identification of the effects of decentralization. Finally, I believe that the conclusions that can be drawn from this study are especially relevant at a time in which a process of recentralization of decision-making autonomy in the education sector in Spain is being undertaken. Second, I analyze the effects of decentralization on educational outcomes under different decentralization structures. That is, I analyze whether different degrees of subnational government autonomy, both on the expenditure and revenue sides, have the expected differential effects. The analysis in Chapter 3 contrasts with analyses reported in previous studies, since it draws on cross-national evidence to analyse the way in which different structures of expenditure and revenue decentralization have a differential impact on the efficiency of public education policies, a question hitherto unaddressed in this branch of literature. However, these studies tell us nothing about the process via which the educational outcomes might vary depending on whether a country operates a decentralized or a centralized system. In Chapter 4 I provide a number of insights into this question, by analyzing the role of teacher quality in a decentralization process, that is, how teacher quality might be affected by decentralization and the extent to which this effect explains the effects of decentralization on educational attainment. The relationship between decentralization and teacher quality has received little attention in the literature and, to the best of my knowledge, the study in chapter 4 is the first attempt to empirically analyze it. In addition to the empirical analysis, an effort has been made in Chapter 4 to summarize the arguments that underpin the relationship between decentralization and teacher quality. Finally, this is also the first study that seeks to analyze the process via which decentralization might affect educational attainment. The methodology used in this study to address this question, which decomposes the total effect of decentralization into a direct effect and an indirect effect via teacher quality has not been applied before in the economics of education empirical literature, which has always tended to focus on the estimation of reduced-form equations of educational attainment. Here, however, I estimate a structural model in which teacher quality variables are also considered endogenous variables. The three studies reveal that the effects of decentralization on the outcomes of the educational system are positive and, in line with theoretical prescriptions, that these effects depend on the autonomy of subnational governments and on the level of government awarded educational competences. Additionally, an important share of the overall effect of decentralization on educational outcomes is mediated through its effects on teacher quality.

(In)Equity in education and educational systems is a topic of outstanding relevance. Factors, like, for example, students' socio-economic status or migration background have been found to be strongly related to academic achievement in various studies and this is a constant finding in large-scale assessment studies – especially for Germany. Does educational inequity accumulate over a child's life span or what compensating factors can be identified? Not least because of the topics' timeless meaning the 5th Dortmund Symposium on Empirical Educational Research was focused on questions pertaining to (in)equity. Factors of influence and approaches to overcome (in)equity were discussed by an international and interdisciplinary expert panel, with contributions from Cyprus, Ireland, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Germany.

In this article, an incubator platform concept is presented to demonstrate the authors' approach in meeting the enormous challenges faced by future multidisciplinary research and education. The abstraction level of laboratory projects needs to be raised to a level where the researchers and students have the opportunity to deal with hands-on real-life system-level problems and decisions, while simultaneously various fundamental key technologies of the information society are integrated into the systems. Their approach is concretized by an Incubator experimental platform. Facilitated by this environment, researchers, engineers and students can join their efforts in developing next-generation products in a well-organized manner. The targeted products must meet the increasingly important special characteristics required for the digital era – self- and context-awareness, built-in information security, distributed networking, enormous scalability and device interoperability. Many projects are today developed by distributed multicultural teams, so it is a necessity that the development can also be implemented in co-operation of several universities in different countries, in order to promote the career skills of the students. The incubator platform proposed in this article is able to provide viable answers and solutions to all the mentioned challenges in engineering research and education, coupling the curriculum tightly to top-class academic research.

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze the effects of campus sustainability planning to annual campus energy inflows and outflows in California higher education. The paper also offers a preliminary statistical analysis for the evaluation of impact factors on energy outflows and a link between energy outflows and building utilization.


Design/methodology/approach
– The paper reports two campus examples University of California Merced and California State University Stanislaus, analyzing 36-months' campus energy outflows data. It uses statistical linear regression analysis to determine the most significant impact factors to energy outflows and what is their relationship. Finally, the paper draws on building utilization data and presents sustainability management strategies for campus energy conservation which make the most of building utilization and contributes to campus sustainability planning efforts.


Findings
– Statistics analysis considered ten multiple models of linear regression to identify the greatest impact factors on campus energy outflows. Interestingly, the overshadowing positive impact factor is renewable energy credits (RECs) which is expected as is required by California energy law. After removing RECs, cost of RECs and cost of electricity from further statistical analysis, we re-compute linear regression for the remaining variables, and natural gas outflows have the strongest – negative – relationship with energy outflows. In this study, it is demonstrated how sustainability planning applies to campus green building design criteria; how much do sustainable campus buildings cost; how sustainability planning affects the inflows and outflows of energy during the period of one academic year; and what are the direct benefits of campus sustainability planning and design to faculty, students, staff, administrators, environment and society.


Research limitations/implications
– The research is focused on two campus examples in California higher education and may have overlooked some campus sustainability plans and energy data from other California campuses. Nevertheless, it is a fairly comprehensive analysis of campus sustainability planning efforts and their effects on energy conservation.


Practical implications
– Campus sustainability plans and their effect on campus energy inflows and outflows are very important. Understanding the details and potential effects of impact factors to energy conservation can help broader adoption and implementation of sustainability planning.


Originality/value
– As an emerging method for campus sustainability efforts, statistical analysis of multiple linear regression models allows colleges and universities to examine energy conservation and align it with campus sustainability planning operational, academic and administrative functions in an integrated manner. To date, very little scholarly attention has been paid to the effects of sustainability planning on campus-level energy conservation, and no prior attempt has been made to consider how they might be analyzed statistically.

All articles in this book explain how teaching methods or curricula/programs can be improved. Non-empirical papers are academically rigorous, and specifically discuss the institutional context of a course or program, as well as any relevant tradeoffs or policy issues. Empirical reports exhibit sound research design and execution, and develop a thorough motivation and literature review, including references from outside the accounting field, where appropriate. Volume 20 includes papers that examine topics: assisting students with career selection via personality assessments to enhance students comprehension of the accounting cycle, incorporating exercises in an auditing course to help students better understand analytical procedures and developing journal lists to assist with departmental decisions. This also includes a special section that examines efforts to integrate accounting with other core business disciplines in the curriculum. This section includes two papers from instructors who have developed theme-based accounting ethics courses. In these cases the instructor focuses the course on developing wisdom in accounting decisions and development with a leadership focus.

For years, journalism education training in the Pacific has relied on donor funded short courses and expatriate media educators but in recent times this has been changing with the growth of more journalism schools at both universities and technical institutes and a more home grown actively qualified staff and proliferating research programmes. These changes can be reflected with the establishment of the new advocacy group, Media Educators Pacific (MEP). This is chaired by Misa Vicky Lepou, the president and she is also the head of journalism at the National University of Samoa. This body has a mission to promote and deliver the highest professional standards of training, education and research in media and journalism education relevant to the Pacific and beyond. In a region where the news media and journalism education have been forced to confront major hurdles such as military coups, as in Fiji; ethnic conflict, as in the Solomon Islands; and two rival governments and the ruthless crushing of student protests in Papua New Guinea in June 2016, major questions are faced. Along with critical development issues such as climate change and resources degradation, what are the challenges ahead for teaching contemporary journalists? These were some of the issues explored by this panel at the Fourth World Journalism Education Congress (WJEC) conference in Auckland in July 2016. The panel was chaired by the Pacific Media Centre director Professor David Robie. Speakers were Emily Matasororo of the University of Papua New Guinea, Shailendra Singh of the University of the South Pacific, Misa Vicky Lepou of the National University of Samoa and Charlie David Mandavah of the Vanuatu Institute of Technology. Eliki Drugunalevu of the University of the South Pacific provided a summing up.

Here is the most thorough study to date on the impact of Ronald Reagan's policies on the states, especially the outcomes of his well-known budget cuts. A treasure trove of information that will be essential for interpretations of the Reagan presidency. Originally published in 1987. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in dur