No description available.

Abstract could not load on D Space.

The second chapter examines the impact of information about school quality on student enrollment. I use a regression discontinuity design to estimate the effects of a school choice program in California that provides families with signals of low school quality. I find that signals of low quality decrease school enrollment by 14.3% relative to enrollment in the previous year and 23.6% over two years. Despite the large changes in enrollment, student demographics are not affected. Additionally, the effects of school-quality signals are largest when families have alternative school choices that are nearby. I also find some evidence that student achievement in elementary schools declines, although I cannot separately identify the degree to which this is caused by changes in student composition. The third chapter examines the effect of textbook funding on student performance. Evidence on the effects of school resources on student achievement is mixed, but quasi-experimental methods suggest that interventions like class size reductions improve student achievement. This is the first study to consider the effect of textbook funding on student achievement by using a quasi-experimental setting in the U.S. I focus on a large class action lawsuit in California that provided a one-time payment of $96.90 per student for textbooks if schools fell below a threshold of academic performance in the previous year. Exploiting this variation with a regression discontinuity design, I find that textbook funding has significant positive effects on student achievement. The low cost of textbooks relative to class size reduction implies that these effects have a very high benefit-per-dollar.

The purpose of this quantitative nonexperimental study was to indicate a better understanding of factors that motivate faculty at a 4-year public institution of higher education to pursue external funding. The study is focused on examining the relationship between characteristics of individual faculty members, productivity related to external funding, and faculty perception of intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors related to pursuing external funding. External funding is a major source of support for research at institutions of higher education. For universities to increase external funding for research along with increasing research productivity, it is essential that university faculty members are motivated to engage in research and seeking funding to support it (Chval & Nossaman, 2014). In order to provide adequate support universities need a clearer understanding of factors that may contribute to faculty’s motivation to pursue external funding. This study was conducted at a 4-year public university in the Southeastern region of the United States. One hundred sixty-seven full-time tenure-track and tenured faculty participated in the study using the web-based anonymous Motivating Factors to Pursuing External Funding Faculty Survey developed by the researcher. The quantitative data were analyzed using a series of single sample t-test, independent t-test, and chi-squared test. This study revealed that the gender and tenure status of full-time tenure-track and tenured faculty at the participating institution does not significantly affect their productivity as it relates to grant submissions or awards. The findings also indicated that the full-time tenure-track and tenured faculty perceive autonomy and self-actualization as significant intrinsic positive motivators and financial rewards as a significant extrinsic positive motivator to pursuing external funding. Additionally, the study found that the full-time tenure-track and tenured faculty did not perceive institutional support services as an extrinsic motivator to pursuing external funding.

This thesis develops the argument that research on the European Community (EC) could be enriched by studies of how Community policies are implemented. The processes by which EC policies are formulated have been the subject of a great deal of research. However, the way in which these policies are subsequently put into practice and whether or not their objectives are achieved has received very little attention. Yet these processes may be highly complex, involving a large variety of institutions and actors at Community, national and regional levels. The complexity of implementation and of the Community's political system offers scope for a significant "implementation gap" between policy objectives and outcomes. This study is therefore about the implementation of EC regional policy. More specifically, it focus*is- on the operation in the United Kingdom of two Community Funds with regional objectives; namely, the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the European Social Fund (ESF). In particular, the activities of the two Funds in South West England are examined. The research also assesses the roles in implementation of the European Commission and national government departments in the UK. The research shows that the UK government is able to influence many aspects of the implementation process by means of its pivotal role in decision-making and its ability to control many financial aspects of the provision of EC grants. As a result, the objectives of the ERDF and ESF may be overwhelmed by the entirely national objectives of government. On the other hand, this study demonstrates that the European Commission can exert some control in order to pursue the Funds' "Community" objectives. The organisations at regional level which actually apply for EC grants are also shown to be of importance. Their involvement is determined by factors such as government restrictions on expenditure, assisted area status, the availability of information, local iniciative and the efficiency of organisational structurcs. The research, which coincided with a period in which EC regional policy is being reformed, calls for more explicit concern in the future with how the Community's increasingly prominent regional development objectives are put into practice. Moreover, it asserts that studying how Community policies operate can help to shed more light on the nature of the EC's political system.

No description available.

The current and future level of demand for higher education in Oman far outweighs the ability of the economy to satisfy it under current financing arrangements. Oman's economy is based on oil and thus there is no guarantee that it will be able to sustain the current level of resourcing for higher education in the future. About half of the population is under the age of 15 and therefore future demand is likely to grow rapidly and the option of buying higher education abroad becomes less attractive in these circumstances. The economy needs an educated workforce in order to grow and to maintain its position in the modem world, not least if it is to cease to rely on expatriate professionals and to expand education in general. Reliance on foreign governments for higher education leaves Oman vulnerable to foreign education policies and to the vagaries of the foreign exchange markets. The Omani Government has responded to these problems by founding the first university in Oman and by encouraging private higher education. However, thought also needs to be given to the nature of funding arrangements. The main aim of this research is to review alternative funding mechanisms for the future development of higher education by evaluating and analyzing social and private rates of return to investment. The study is based on the human capital concept which views education as a form of economic investment. The main motive assumed for public and private investments is the expectation of higher returns (benefits). Cost-benefit and rates of return analysis are used in order to achieve an efficient utilization of resources. To achieve maximum benefits it is also necessary for the system to be equitable, i.e. to maximize access to higher education irrespective of income and social class. The results indicate that the public cost of higher education in Oman is much higher than the cost to the individual. This is explained by the fact that most of the direct cost in public higher education (the Sultan Qaboos University) is fully subsidized by the Government, and that individual students do not incur any direct cost. Consequently, the estimates of public rates of return to investment are low in comparison to the private rates. Accordingly, the allocation of additional public resources for higher education is not justified economically, and a form of private (contribution) towards the cost of education is required to reduce public cost and improve social rates of return. A practical mechanism to enable individual students to contribute towards the cost of their education without affecting their access to higher education has to be established. After analyzing and evaluating several policy instruments, it was found that the most appropriate mechanism of funding would be to recover the cost of education by deducting from the individual's income after graduation and during the first twenty years of employment. This might be seen as a first step towards a graduate income tax method of funding. It is emphasized that the funding of higher education is a complex business which is not susceptible to solution by using a single policy instrument. The present analysis should be seen as a first step towards achieving a different approach to the funding of higher education in Oman.

The government of Cameroon like that of many Sub-S aharan African countries is faced with dwindling revenues and cannot provide the required fmances for the education sector. Since many other developing countries are facing similar fmancial constraints, policy options have been proposed for the recovery of costs as a way of revitalizing and improving the quality of education in these countries. The introduction of user charges is one of the more prominent options that applies to all levels of education. In light of the educational financing situation in Cameroon, this study sets out to assess the possibility of implementing this option. It therefore seeks to analyze how secondary schools are fmanced and to measure private direct costs of secondary education so as to determine parental willingness to spend on schooling. A household and a school survey were conducted in Mezam Division of the North West Province of Cameroon. 335 households in urban and rural areas were involved in the household survey, while 16 principals and 750 students, selected from 16 secondary schools, took part in the school survey. Results from these surveys indicate that in government secondary schools, although tuition is provided free, parents are obliged to meet the costs of books and uniforms. Moreover, because government funding is inadequate, by default, parents are obliged to contribute further towards the provision of additional facilities in these schools through the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA). Thus parents incur substantial costs for their children's education, in relation to household income and Gross National per Capita Income. The study also reveals that in the private educational sector, fees and other parental contributions, including PTA levies, form an important source of finance for secondary schools. Parents of government school students value the education of their children highly, and therefore indicated willingness to pay more, even though they already incur substantial costs. The findings further indicate that willingness to pay will be increased if the quality of education is improved. However, ability to pay is related to family income and number of children, which have important implications for equity which are discussed in the thesis. Finally the study reveals that the highly centralized financing policy and practice in government secondary schools does not take into account the fmancial capacity of communities and private individuals sufficiently. The thesis argues that, in order to improve access, quality and efficiency of educational provision, an appropriate cost-sharing strategy needs to be developed to finance government secondary schools, with provision of scholarships or other selective assistance to the most needy. The thesis suggests further that, efforts be made to explore parental willingness and the inherent self help tradition of the people, by encouraging local management and fmancing of schools. Hence support from individual users and contributions from local communities through Parent-Teacher-Associations should be actively solicited. It also suggests that the decentralization of educational management of schools will go a long way towards enhancing educational quality and efficiency. This will require some adjustments to the existing financing structures, and changes in the regulation and management of the education system. The successful implementation of these recommendations require immense political will on the part of the policy makers.

The development of Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMMEs) contributes significantly to job creation, social stability and economic welfare. Obtaining finance for start-up and growing entrepreneurial ventures has proved to be crucial for SMME growth and is therefore the prime concern of this research. This research will specifically investigate the risk assessment practices used by South African commercial banks when providing funding to entrepreneurial ventures. In addition, the research seeks to establish whether there is consistency amongst the South African commercial banks in their risk assessments practices. Lastly to establish the impact of the global economic crisis of 2008 on the risk assessment practices of the South African commercial banks. To achieve this, a qualitative study in the form of expert interviews supported by structured research questionnaires with representatives of the four large banks was undertaken. In summary, the findings of the research demonstrated that risk assessment practices of the South African commercial banks were consistent with the integrated theoretical framework and amongst each other. Respondents ranked the character, capacity and collateral of the business as the most important criteria when assessing term loan applications. Furthermore, the impact of the global economic crisis of 2008 resulted in the lending policies of the banks being more strictly adhered to. Copyright / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Includes bibliography. / The donor - recipient relationship has been the focus of numerous research projects. However, the conditions imposed by donors when giving funding to a recipient in relation to programmatic focus and the resultant ability of an organisation to remain autonomous have not been really addressed. This research therefore sought to address this very issue with regards to the conditions placed on donor funds and their effect on NGO autonomy. The research takes Gunder Frank’s dependency theory as its theoretical framework which suggests that the third world was actively underdeveloped and conditioned to be recipients rather than producers. The same logic was then applied to the NGO sector where these organisations are trapped in the receiving cycle with little, to no individual ability to fundraise to become self-sustaining. The research was qualitative in nature where the researcher administered a web based survey to NGOs in three countries in East Africa namely; Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. However, a qualitative aspect was also incorporated in the research as respondents were offered the opportunity within the survey tool to offer their individual opinion in a narrative form. Probability sampling was employed meaning that each organisation on the respective lists had an equal chance of being selected to participate in the survey, which ran from, December 2012 to June 2013. A total of 517 organisations were preselected to participate in the survey. The researcher received 74 complete responses which was a 14.31%rate thus deemed good for an electronic survey.