The aim of this study was to explore some of the reasons for low student enrollments at alternative schools, through a case study of a Ugandan alternative school, Heritage International School. The study was carried out in Kampala, the capital city of Uganda, in a small town called Kansanga, where Heritage International School, is located. Various people were interviewed in different categories, to find out their views on low enrollments at HIS. The literature review in the study included the theoretical perspectives on reasons for low enrolments in various schools that had the characteristics of HIS. This review was very helpful in steering the direction of the research as it highlighted various causes for low enrolments at alternative schools. This research was able to highlight the causes of low enrollment that were particular to HIS and therefore give some recommendations on to how to solve these problems. / Education / M. Ed. (Education Management)

Esta dissertação de mestrado teve o objetivo de investigar os motivos que levaram os pais de crianças com autismo e deficiência intelectual associada a matricularem seus filhos na educação infantil em escolas de educação especial. Para atender o objetivo proposto, esta pesquisa apresenta um panorama da educação infantil no Brasil, com destaque para a questão da educação especial, abordando as suas ambiguidades presentes nas normas e legislação, além de discutir a respeito da falta de consenso e fragilidade na conceituação e caracterização do autismo e da deficiência intelectual. Foram realizadas entrevistas com pais de crianças com autismo e deficiência intelectual associada, que frequentaram a educação infantil em escola de educação especial. O que se observou nas entrevistas foi que os pais buscaram inicialmente a escola regular para seus filhos, mas devido às dificuldades encontradas, acabaram escolhendo por retirá-los da escola regular e matriculá-los em escolas privadas de educação especial, por acreditarem que estas escolas podem oferecer melhores condições para o processo de escolarização de seus filhos. Ao analisarmos os relatos dos pais à luz da Teoria Critica da Sociedade, levantamos alguns indícios de que a escola de educação especial muitas vezes aparece como a melhor possibilidade de escolarização para crianças com autismo de e deficiência intelectual associada, logo, esta escolha dos pais apresenta uma coerência. No entanto, não houve resistência e enfrentamento dos pais ao se depararem com as dificuldades na inclusão de seus filhos nas escolas de ensino regular, o que indica uma atitude de adaptação destes pais em relação aos limites impostos à escolarização de seus filhos com autismo e deficiência intelectual associada. Além disso, discutimos a questão de que a educação infantil pode ser um ambiente inclusivo dado às condições adequadas para que as crianças tenham contato com a diversidade, ou seja, crianças com e sem deficiências frequentando a mesma escola, podem por esta aproximação ter uma diminuição do preconceito para com o diferente / This dissertation aimed to investigate the reasons that parents of children with autism and intellectual disability associated with enrolling their children in early childhood education in special education schools. To meet the proposed objective, this research presents an overview of early childhood education in Brazil, highlighting the issue of special education, approaching their present ambiguity in the rules and legislation, and to discuss about the fragility and lack of consensus in the conceptualization and characterization of autism and intellectual disabilities. Interviews were conducted with parents of children with autism and intellectual disability associated with, who attended early childhood education in special education school. What was observed in the interviews was that parents initially sought a mainstream school for their children, but due to difficulties, just by choosing to remove them from regular school and enroll them in private schools for special education because they believe that these schools may offer better conditions for the process of schooling of their children. When analyzing the parental reports in the light of Critical Theory of Society, lifted some evidence that the special education school often appears as the best possible education for children with autism and intellectual disability associated, so that parental choice has consistency. However, there was no resistance and coping of parents faced with the difficulties in including their children in mainstream schools, which indicates an attitude adjustment of parents in relation to limits on the schooling of their children with autism and disabilities associated intellectual. Moreover, we discuss the question that early childhood education can be an inclusive environment given the right conditions for children to have contact with diversity and children with and without disabilities attending the same school, this approach may have a decreased prejudice toward different

The dissertation research will comprise three essays on the topic of the resource curse hypothesis and its mechanisms. The phenomenon of low economic growth in resource-rich regions is recognized as the “resource curse”. These essays will contribute to an understanding of the regional resource-growth relation within a nation. Essay one tests the resource curse hypothesis at the U.S. state level. With a system of equations model, I decompose the overall resource effect to account for the two leading explanations — crowding-out and institution effects, thus investigate whether the institutions mediate the crowding-out effects. I did not find evidence of an overall negative effect on growth by resource wealth. Both the crowding-out and institution appear present, but they offset: the resource boom crowds out industrial investments, but good institutions mitigate the overall effect. Resources do reduce growth in states with low-quality institutions, including Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas. Essay two compares the effects of resource revenues on the economic growth and growth-related factors across Chinese provinces and American states, using panel data from 1990 to 2015. With the Instrumental Variable (IV) strategy, I show that regions with higher resource revenues grow faster than other regions in both China and the U.S. The positive resource effect is larger and more statistically significant in the U.S. Further testing impacts of three resource-related policies in China, e.g. the market price reform, the fiscal reform, and the Western Development Strategy, I show that the market price reform together with the privatization process on coal resources contribute the positive resource effect in China. Though strong and positive resource – growth relations appear in both countries, evidence also suggests consistent negative resource effects on certain growth-related factors in both countries, such as educational attainments and R&D activities. Essay three explores the schooling response to the oil and gas boom, taking advantage of timing and spatial variation in oil and gas well drilling activities. Development of cost-reducing technologies at the time of higher crude oil and natural gas prices in the early 2000s has accelerated shale oil and gas extraction in the United States. I show that intensive drilling activities have decreased grade 11 and 12 enrollment over the 14 year study window − approximately 36 fewer students per county on average and overall, 41,760 fewer students across the 15 states enrolled considered in the analysis. On average, with one additional oil or gas well drilled per thousand initial laborers, grade 11 and 12 enrollment would decrease 0.24 percent at the county level, all else equal. I investigate heterogeneous effects and show that the implied effect of the boom is larger in states with a younger compulsory schooling age requirement (16 years of age instead of 17 or 18), lower state-level effective tax rate on oil and gas productions, traditional mining, non-metro, and persistent poverty counties.

La presente tesi di dottorato è articolata in tre capitoli a se stanti che riguardano l’ambito dell’economia applicata e dell’economia dello sviluppo. Il primo capitolo analizza l’impatto intergenerazionale di shock idiosincratici alla situazione lavorativa dei genitori sull'istruzione secondaria dei figli, utilizzando un’indagine longitudinale condotta in Bosnia Erzegovina. Il secondo capitolo tratta delle potenziali conseguenze di lungo termine della guerra civile sulla partecipazione politica. In particolare, l’analisi utilizza le statistiche ufficiali disponibili relative alle elezioni in Bosnia Erzegovina e mostra che nelle municipalità più intensamente colpite dal conflitto, misurato in termini di perdite civili, l’affluenza elettorale e il capitale sociale sono minori. Il terzo capitolo contribuisce alla letteratura sulla “auto-selezione” in termini di salute della popolazione Indiana migrante presente in Inghilterra. L'analisi fornisce evidenza empirica delle differenze in termini di statura ed altri indicatori di salute delle prime e seconde generazioni di migranti in relazione alla popolazione nativa del paese di destinazione, e a quella del paese di origine. / This dissertation is a collection of three self-contained essays in applied and development economics. In the first chapter I evaluate whether educational investments of adolescent offspring are vulnerable to idiosyncratic shocks to parental employment. Specifically, I estimate the short-term impact of parental job loss on children’s enrollment in post-compulsory schooling, introducing a focus on paternal and maternal unemployment, and analysing differential gender specific effects. I further discuss the potential channels of inter-generational transmission with a specific focus on the role played by female labor supply in contexts of developing economies. Using panel data estimation techniques based on four waves of longitudinal household data from Bosnia and Herzegovina, the results show that maternal involuntary employment shocks affects school enrollment of daughters aged 15-18. In the second chapter I analyze the consequences of exposure to civil conflict on voters’ turnout and social participation. Our source of variation in violence exposure is given by war-related civilian fatalities recorded at the municipality level. In a “difference in differences” estimation framework, our results show that the intensity of civil conflict reduces turnout in the medium and long run, up to twenty years after the end of the war. War exposure is also associated with lower generalised trust and worse measures of social participation. The third chapter evaluates height performances of first and second generation migrants of Indian origins in England, with respect to adults and children in India, and the native population at destination. We provide evidence of migrants’ “self selection” on health, and we show that the circumstances in which individuals are born and raised can contribute to the definition of body size, in addition to the genetic channel and to the traits transmitted by maternal characteristics through gestation.

The thesis explores two main topics, Catholic schools in a school choice setting and decentralization of education decision making. The first chapter uses Chilean data to assess the impact of Catholic versus secular voucher or public school attendance on student outcomes. I address admission selection bias by leveraging exogenous variation from school admission lotteries and controls for students' probability of securing a seat in each type of school. My causal estimates reveal that students attending Catholic schools have a 17 percent higher probability of taking the college entry exam (CEE) than those who attend secular public schools. Additionally, Catholic school attendance raises students' chances of scoring above the national mean by 33 percent in math and 45 percent in reading. Catholic school attendance also increases students' probability of applying and being accepted to college. Nevertheless, attending Catholic schools raises dropout rates for boys with low baseline ability. Notably, the positive CEE effects are driven by girl students; however, attending a Catholic school appears to dissuade girls from pursuing STEM majors. Survey evidence reveals that Catholic schools have stricter disciplinary measures and foster higher levels of parent involvement than other public and secular institutions---characteristics commonly associated with high-achieving charter schools. The second chapters explore how student selection changed in terms of socioeconomic characteristics and baseline ability after a centralized school admission system (CAS) was mandated to all publicly funded schools in Chile. That includes private Catholic and secular runned institutions as well as public schools. Estimating a difference in difference model with multiple time periods, leveraging the regional staggered implementation of the CAS. Results indicate that after the centralized admission system (CAS) started, private Catholic schools enrolled a higher proportion of lower-income and lower-ability students than before, this effect is also positive for private-secular and public-schools, but in a lower magnitude. Finally, the third chapter evaluates the effects of the administrative decentralization of education on teacher quality and student outcomes in Colombia. In 2001, the government established an arbitrary rule that granted municipalities with a 2002 population greater than 100,000 almost complete autonomy to provide education services (certification). This analysis takes advantage of this rule to evaluate, using difference-in-differences and regression discontinuity methodologies, the effect of municipal autonomy on teacher quality and student outcomes, including achievement and enrollment. The control group is made up of municipalities for which the provision of education was centralized and managed by the departmental authorities. The results indicate that administrative decentralization (being certified) improves both school enrollment and student achievement as well as the quality of teachers, as measured by teachers’ education level and scores on teachers’ entry competency exams. Using a mediation analysis, the paper finds that higher-quality teachers hired by the certified municipalities partially explained the improvement in student achievement. This analysis also shows that “certified” municipalities invest more local resources in education which also contributes to explain to a much lesser extent their superior educational outcomes. Finally, the results suggest that achieving better student outcomes is less related to the amount of resources that decentralized municipalities managed and more associated with the fact that those resources seem to have been better allocated, generating significant efficiency gains. These gains may be the consequence of lower transaction costs of matching local preferences with local educational interventions.

An investigation of learners’ enrolment in Bela-Bela farm schools is a study focused on the challenges encountered by farm schools. These challenges result in the decline of learners’ enrolment. The researcher has put more emphasis on the history of farm schools, legislation and policy, and socio-economic conditions of farm societies. The research method is qualitative in nature and it includes literature study, observations and semi-structured interviews. It has been discovered from the data that families working on the farms migrate a lot, and this result in decline of learners’ enrolment in farm schools. Based on the findings, recommendations were made for improvements to assist in addressing problems faced by farm schools. / Further Teacher Education / M.Ed. (Education Management)

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

Annotation: Thesis characterizes contemporary nursery and basic school, direct basic methods and forms mutual cooperation these institutions and points out how to facilitate children the transition from pre-school to primary education. The methods which have used are method of observation and the structured interview. Observation was carried out on the selected nursery and basic schools. Interviews were realized with directors or executives these institutions and with experts from pedagogical- psychological counseling. The aim of the thesis was to find out how take place school enrollment in the current elementary schools, how the students are successful/unsuccessful, what are the most common reasons for postponements schooling. Thesis also shows that preschool children are able in a relatively short period of time of great expansion capability. Another aim was to determine the forms and methods of cooperation of individual nursery and primary schools. Work also points to the possible difficulties of children in nursery or later difficulties at the beginning of schooling. Work also points to the possible difficulties of children in nursery or later difficulties at the beginning of schooling. The work also highlights the awareness of parents and children regarding suspension of school attendance.

因應各國中等教育普及化的潮流，教育部擬以高中職社區化為十二年國民教育奠基，將台灣劃分為四十五個適性學習社區，並以均衡高中職城鄉差距、提高國中畢業生就近入學之機會為目的。本研究以雲林縣三個適性學習社區為例，檢視各社區高中、職的就學機會是否均衡，並觀察學生通學活動的情形，是否符合社區內就近入學的期待，藉此對適性學習社區的地理範圍規劃，與其劃分原則提出修正的建議。 本研究發現，雲林縣整體就學機會率較他縣市低落，高中、職學校集中於特定鄉鎮，空間分布不甚平均，不利於學生就近就學，而產生部分學生向外縣市通學的情形。外縣市通學的人口中，以高職生為多，多往嘉義縣、市為就學地；顯示雲林縣境內就學機會的供給不敷需求，高職就學機會不均的現象比高中嚴重許多。而就雲林縣三個適性學習社區觀察，雲二區、雲三區內高中、職學生區內就讀的比例皆為六成以上，是為社區內就近就學的良好基礎；雲一區學生外流的情形嚴重，特別是高職學生，往嘉義縣、市通學的趨勢集中，顯示雲一區內就學機會供不應求的情形嚴重，值得注目。對教育當局的建議有二：（1）高中、職通學活動範圍不同，不宜以同一地理界線劃分；（2）雲一區學生向外通學現象嚴重，宜增設高中職校改善之。 / With the popularization of post-secondary education, the Ministry of Education adopts the plan of “Community Senior High School and Vocational School” to connect with the compulsory education. In this plan, Taiwan has been divided into 45 “Adaptive Learning Communities” and the purpose is to diminish the urban-rural difference and increase the opportunity of nearby school enrollment. This study observes the geographical distribution of students in the three communities in Yunlin to examine the condition of nearby school enrollment. The conclusions are as follows: Senior high schools and vocational schools distributes disproportionately in Yunlin. In other words, almost all schools concentrate in the few towns. It is common for students to commute between residential and school districts, especially for the students enrolled in vocational school. Many non-resident students commute to Chiayi, and the flow of the commuter shows that the supply is unable to meet the demand of school enrollment totally in Yun-1st community. Besides, there are still many students enrolled in nearby schools in Yun-2nd Community and Yun-3rd Community. Based on the results and discoveries of this study, the following suggestions are proposed: (1)The range of the community should be re-divided for senior high schools and vocational schools respectively. (2)It is necessary to establish more schools in Yun-1 community to increase the supply of the opportunity of the nearby school enrollment.

Vzrůstající nedostatek pohybu dětí a mladistvých v průmyslových státech se v minulých desetiletích rozvinul ve zdravotně-politický problém. V souladu s touto problematikou zároveň klesá i úroveň motorických schopností a dovedností, což představuje citelné omezení dětského vývoje, fyzické i psychické komponenty. Důsledkem jsou rostoucí náklady na zdravotní péči, které posléze výrazně zatěžují zdravotnictví v jednotlivých zemích. Cílem vědeckých týmů Západočeské Univerzity v Plzni a Technické Univerzity Chemnitz je v rámci pilotní studie pod názvem „Přeshraniční srovnávací analýza motorických schopností dětí mladšího školního věku“ stanovit a porovnat aktuální zdravotní situaci školáků v České republice a Německu. / Der gestiegene Bewegungsmangel der Kinder und Jugendlichen in den Industriestaaten hat sich in den vergangenen Jahrzehnten zu einem gesundheitspolitischen Problem entwickelt. Das darüber hinaus sinkende Niveau motorischer Fähigkeiten und Fertigkeiten zieht Beeinträchtigungen der kindlichen Entwicklung auf physischer und psychischer Ebene mit entsprechenden Folgekosten für die Gesundheitssysteme der Länder nach sich. Die Wissenschaftler der Westböhmischen Universität Pilsen und der Technischen Universität Chemnitz haben sich aus diesem Grund zum Ziel gesetzt, in der Pilotstudie „Grenzüberschreitende Vergleichsanalyse der motorischen Fähigkeiten von Kindern des jüngeren Schulalters“ die gesundheitliche Situation von Schulanfängern in der Tschechischen Republik und in Deutschland zu untersuchen und gegenüber zu stellen. / The increased sedentary lifestyle of children and adolescents in industrialized countries has evolved into a public health problem over the past decades. In addition, the declining level of motor abilities and skills draws impairment of children development on physical and psychological level, with appropriate follow-up costs for the health systems of countries. Scientists at the University of West Bohemia Pilsen and the Chemnitz University of Technology have for this reason the goal to investigate and to contrast the health situation of children starting school in the Czech Republic and in Germany with the pilot study "Cross-border comparative analysis of the motor skills of children of younger school age".