This thesis addresses the schooling challenges posed by children living in African communities where several languages are used and where the language of instruction at school is not their home language. Its focus is the dynamic between languages spoken at home and in the school environment, particularly, how the home language may affect early reading skills. The study is situated in urban Kenya, where Kiswahili is the official language of instruction in lower grades, with English used later on, while many households use other languages at home (e.g. Kikuyu, Kikamba). This dissertation uses survey data collected in 2012 by USAID. The study explores the extent to which the impact of being taught in Kiswahili in lower grades, depends on whether or not Kiswahili is the pupil's home language. School fixed effects are used to control for unobservable factors at the school level. Results from assessments run over a population of pupils who speak Kiswahili at home against those who do not within the same schools are compared. The Kiswahili literacy scores of pupils who speak Kiswahili at home are .206 standard deviation higher than those of pupils who do not speak it at home. The same students also achieve .247 standard deviation more in English, suggesting that speaking the same language at home and at school may also help reading acquisition in another language. The thesis then investigates reading skills' interactions between Kiswahili and English, to see if there is cross-language transfer. Seemingly Unrelated Regression is used to account for equations' cross-correlation. An interdependence is demonstrated between the two languages. The relationship between reading skills in the two languages is not constant and the transfer is stronger when tied to proficiency in English. The results further suggest that having a home language other than Kiswahili is not detrimental to language transfer once a certain proficiency is reached in English and in Kiswahili. Finally, the study examines the linguistic composition of a pupil's peer circle at school and the effect of the group's linguistic diversity on reading outcomes. The peer effect is isolated using a linguistic fractionalization index. This is done in different grades within the same school. Results show that peer effects on Kiswahili scores are mediated by linguistic diversity at school. As the peers' linguistic diversity increases, peers' Kiswahili scores decrease, which negatively affects pupils' own score. On English scores, peer effects are not found to be conditional on linguistic diversity. Findings further show that low achievers are more affected by peer effects than high achieving pupils.

In the UK, recent advances in data linking and matching have enabled education economists to shed new light on old questions. This thesis builds on these data developments to investigate three separate questions in the economics of education. The chapters all have a geographical focus on the UK and all touch upon issues related to higher education in some capacity or other. The first chapter deals with the determinants of subject choice and attainment. More specifically, it estimates the effects of an education policy (Triple Science) in England aimed at increasing the take-up and attainment of young people in science subjects. The results suggest some large and significant effects of the policy on later subject choice and attainment, and these appear to be particularly strong for boys and pupils from more deprived backgrounds. The second chapter considers the question of whether it pays to attend more selective universities in the UK. I compare students who indicated preferences for, and were conditionally accepted to, the same universities - but who attended different ones because some failed to meet the conditions of their preferred offer. The results suggest that the university you attend matters to your earnings, with one standard deviation in selectivity leading to a 7% increase in earnings three and half years after graduation. The third and final chapter explores the effect changes in university rankings have on applicant and institution behaviour in the UK. Universities that fall down the rankings experience small but statistically significant drops in the number of applications received, as well as in the average tariff score of applicants and accepted applicants. Although the effects found are stronger for certain types of students and institutions, they tend to be modest overall, and suggest that other factors play a more important role in attracting applicants to universities.

Proponents of charter schools argue that contracting out schools to management organizations can improve student performance and decrease costs by giving schools autonomy in exchange for accountability. Little evidence exists, however, on how contracts are determined, whether contracting is an effective policy in education, and the effects of terminating contracts. In New Orleans, most of the public schools have been contracted out to nonprofit management organizations over the past ten years. Several of those contracts have been terminated and schools are then contracted out to new management organizations. The empirical analysis of how authorizers make decisions about which charter schools are allowed into the market, and which schools have their contracts terminated revealed that initial approval decisions were strongly predicted by the subjective ratings of the outside charter application evaluator, but not by other application characteristics derived directly from the applications. Schools were renewed for operation if they had high test levels and/or value added, but family preferences were not taken into consideration (as measured by enrollment levels and growth). The results of the difference-in-differences and matching analysis used to analyze the effect that district-to-charter and charter-to-charter restarts and closures have on student performance indicated that elementary student test scores increase by the second year after both types of restart. The scores increase even sooner, after only one year for charter-to-charter restarts. However, if failing schools are closed instead of being contracted out, students do not experience any change in test scores. High school students experience decreases in test scores and in the probability of graduating following restarts and closures. / 1 / Whitney Ruble

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Economics, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Feb. 4, 2010). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-04, Section: A, page: 1367. Adviser: Gerhard Glomm.

Thesis (M. Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 84-93).

Education today is inseparable from the accumulation of human capital. The New York Times called human capital the most important asset in our portfolio. In my dissertation, I analyze the effectiveness of different educational policies and programs in Mexico and the United States. In the first chapter of my dissertation I study the differences in the academic performance of students in the double-shift schooling system in Mexico. The double-shift schooling system is a common policy in countries with constrained resources. This policy is viewed as a way to serve more students. In Mexico, people believe that the morning shift provides better educational opportunities than the afternoon shift. This belief and, as a result, the excess demand for the morning shift have created a biased selection of better students into the morning session. The results suggest that a non-random assignment of students to schooling sessions explains the apparent academic inequality between students from different sessions. The second chapter of my dissertation evaluates the Gifted and Talented Program in the elementary schools of TUSD. Gifted education and tracking ability programs have attracted a great deal of attention from education and economic researchers. However, there is no definite conclusion about the effects of these programs. In addition, the program placement is likely to be endogenous with respect to outcomes. The results suggest that there is a positive effect of the self-contained program, however, the instrumental variables estimation show no evidence of the effect. In the third chapter I study school preferences under the open enrollment policy in the U. S. Some of the nation's largest districts are forced to close schools because of declines in student enrollment and budget cuts. Public schools are losing enrollment to charter schools. Moreover, under the open enrollment law students are opting out to other, more attractive, neighboring districts. In order to keep schools open the school administration needs to understand what characteristics of schools would attract and keep students in schools. The results show that students are more likely to choose big schools in wealthier neighborhoods, with low mobility rates, and higher average scores.

<p>Researchers have calculated the relationship between human capital development and economic output by various means of econometric modeling and by use of numerous indicators under the context of an assortment of human capital theory. This study was conducted to identify new interpretations of the expansion of human capital in the form of tertiary education enrollment in the countries of Israel, Japan, and Norway from 2000 to 2010. The researcher applied an OLS non-linear regression to establish four hypotheses, including modeling with regional dummy variables to generate point estimates for each country in order to analyze each country&rsquo;s educational policy implementation. The researcher collected data from UNESCO UIS, OECD, and the World Bank on tertiary enrollments, tertiary expenditures, and other measures utilized during modeling. Regional dummy variables allowed the researcher to calculate educational returns for five different regions: Africa, Asia, Europe and the United States, Latin America, and Former Communist countries. Optimization of tertiary education enrollment to maximize the real growth rate in each region was estimated and point estimates were computed for Israel, Norway, and Japan. Results indicated that tertiary education did in fact effect economic growth, but whether this growth was positive or negative was dependent on a country-by-country basis. Israel and Norway reported positive returns to tertiary education in terms of economic growth, where Japan exhibited negative returns to tertiary education in terms of economic growth. Government and educational policy recommendations were made based on computed outputs. </p>

<p> Over the last 100 years, there has been an ever-tightening correlation between education and employment. In the early 1900s, it was the attainment of a high school diploma that yielded lower unemployment. In the middle of the century, it was the bachelor's degree, and in the 21st century, it is advanced degrees, such as MBAs. While there is a preponderance of data supporting the relationship between higher levels of education and a diminishing likelihood of unemployment, the value of continuing education potentially assisting an educated (degree-holding) worker back into the workforce is an un-researched area. </p><p> This study examined the relationship between the pursuit of continuing education (either advanced academic degree or industry certification) and re-employment for experienced professionals. When the educational effort was introduced in interviewing, hiring or sourcing activities, did recruiters or hiring managers give preference to that job candidate? Moreover, since the worker already had an academic degree, would pursuit of an advanced degree be more beneficial than the pursuit of a professional certification? </p><p> Early discussions with several potential subjects indicated that they could not, due to privacy and legal issues, divulge hiring decisions for specific staff members. Therefore, two anonymous surveys were devised to solicit insights from both job seekers and recruiters/hiring managers. The recruiter/hiring manager responses supplied the most direct answers to the research questions while the job seeker responses provided insights on the current approach to education when a person is unemployed. </p><p> The findings identified that recruiters/hiring managers embraced continuing education. Depending on the situation, between 35% and 67% of the respondents valued the educational efforts in the hiring process. In most cases, since the worker already held a bachelor's degree, pursuit of an industry certification was deemed more valuable than the pursuit of an advanced degree, but neither pursuit could compete with job candidates who already held advanced degrees. </p><p> While further research is needed to refine the differences based on age, degree type, and industries, the general guidance for an out-of-work professional with a bachelor's degree is to pursue industry certification or pursue an advanced degree to improve the prospects of quicker re-employment. </p>

Thesis PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 84-93). Also available in print.