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University stakeholders\u27 perceptions of quality assurance reforms in Pakistan : the role of borrowing policy
No full textGlobalization and governments are demanding for effectiveness and efficiency in higher education. Universities have structurally been reformed to document improvement in performance and are held accountable for government support and private investment. Quality Assurance (QA) mechanisms, as evidence of educational excellence, became prevalent in many developing countries in the 1990s and 2000. QA in higher education is essential for university ranking systems, accountability and internal homogenization. When reforming higher education, borrowing other nations’ practices/quality standards is common and complex for learning and improving.
Aligned with the global development of quality reforms, Pakistan, as an aid recipient and colonized country, has reformed its higher education by establishing Quality Assurance Agency under the Higher Education Commission (HEC). Guided by global quality standards, the HEC has issued a quality assurance manual and implemented the contents in public universities through Quality Enhancement Cell to ensure their internal quality matters.
Extant literature discusses key stakeholders’ positive and negative perceptions of developing and practicing quality assurance policies. The literature is silent on policymakers’ perceptions of borrowing global best practices while developing QA policies and faculty perspectives about adhering to the QA policy in quality assurance\u27s teaching and learning component. This qualitative case study explores the perceptions and practices of higher education stakeholders (Policymakers, faculty members and administrators) on quality assurance reforms from the lens of policy borrowing. It focuses on understanding the impact of developing a quality assurance manual and its implementation in teaching and learning in one public university. The policy borrowing and lending, glonacal and quality models served as a theoretical framework. Data was collected from 27 participants, including policymakers, faculty members and administrators. Additionally, a careful review of the QA manual was conducted in order to frame interview questions and examine the extent to which the manual suggestions and requirements were upheld during implementation. The data were analyzed through a thematic analysis procedure supported with the data organization software NVivo.
Analysis revealed polarized views on borrowing global best practices/ quality standards. Favourable views included that borrowing good policies are beneficial, research and result oriented, and have spread internationally and adopting them could help improve local practices. Further, the best practices yielded better results if adapted and contextualized to fulfil the local needs, values and culture. Opposing views included that borrowing external practices and policies contradicts the local context and leads to dependency on Western knowledge, which hinders local scholars from producing local knowledge and models. These participants suggested that QA policies were, centralized, contextual and predominantly adapted from UK QA standards. Social, economic and religious factors affect quality policy development and implementation.
The study explored participants\u27 views on how quality assurance bears on teaching and learning. They conceptualized it as minimum standards, quantity, purpose and excellence for students’ learning. However, the existing quality standards have less focus on improving teaching. Conflicting views emerged between policymakers and the faculty members on who and how QA policy was developed. The policymakers argued that HEC developed the quality assurance manual involving professors and subject specialists with robust faculty participation. In contrast, the faculty reported little participation and argued that they acted as implementors and had little/ no roles in policy decisions and formulation. Although participation was lacking in the development of the policy, faculty were active implementors of QA standards in daily teaching, course design and evaluation of students’ learning. Implementation of QA was challenging due to the lack of resources, faculty training lack of local QA model, enrolment of students without test and lack of seriousness about the self-assessment practices of quality assurance which complicates whether QA has improved teaching and learning.
The findings imply that HEC may need to modify the current policy toward a more inclusive and contextually relevant QA model with an international outlook. They could benefit from the development of widespread training, allocate sufficient resources for effective quality implementation, and align QEC functions smoothly focusing on teaching and learning to have a robust quality culture in the university
From outrage to outrage : matrimony and Irish nationalism in James Joyce’s \u3ci\u3eUlysses\u3c/i\u3e (1922)
No full textFor many readers of Ulysses, Joyce’s attitude towards nationalism to this day still remains competed, ambiguous and intricate. His view on nationalism is chiefly analysed through thoughts and experience of Stephen as an extension of himself and Bloom, but seldom on the adulterous, intricate relationship between Bloom and Molly. Challenging the orthodoxy that perceives Molly’s adultery as chiefly serving to discuss female sexuality and marriage dissatisfactions, this essay argues that by the parallels drawn between sexual purity and cultural purity, Joyce’s attitude towards Irish nationalism can be clarified through the lens of his view on sexuality and marital relationships. Joyce repudiates the Church\u27s morality of marital conventions and sexual purity and promotes a rational conception of sexual relationships. Likewise, there was always another culture and race in colonial Ireland. The way Leopold and Molly Bloom deal with the respective infidelity of their spouses forms Joyce’s political critique of nationalism
The effect of contextual uncertainty on confidence judgements in perception and its relation to metacognition
Get PDFOur brain processes noisy and incomplete information to make adaptive decisions and chooses appropriate responses based on the strength of our subjective evaluation. Such subjective evaluation of our decisions could be referred to our metacognition— the ability to monitor and recognize our own successful cognitive processing. What information does our metacognitive system take in during subjective evaluation? To what extent our metacognitive judgements are influenced by the context? The current study aims to investigate whether there is an effect of contextual uncertainty on confidence judgments when perceptual performance is controlled. In this study, participants were required to perform both type 1 and type 2 judgements, in which they first determine the orientation of the perceptual stimuli by ignoring the context, and then they perform a retrospective judgment measured in confidence level. Our findings showed that there was a significant effect of contextual uncertainty on confidence judgments and our metacognitive system will be most susceptible to the surrounding information when task difficulty is moderately easy. The altered sensitivity in perception could potentially explain such contextual effect on confidence judgments and we proposed two contrasting concepts to explicate how various levels of contextual uncertainty could influence our confidence judgments differently
The Sounds of the Tang Poetry : Transcultural performance : American Guqin artist at Lingnan : Tang poetry and Guqin music
No full textThis podcast you are listening to is the soundtrack of the 8th episode of HOW TO READ CHINESE POETRY VIDEOS. John Thompson, the best-known performer of early music for the Chinese guqin zither, has since 1976 reconstructed over 200 melodies from 15th to 17th century sources and given numerous solo performances worldwide. His website, www.silkqin.com, the most comprehensive source of information on this subject, receives thousands of hits daily. In 2019 a two-hour documentary about his guqin work was released. In this episode, the American guqin artist plays several tunes related to Tang Poetry and shares his reflections upon the Qin Poetry and Song.
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IMF and the Global South
No full textModerator: David BARKIN (Metropolitan Autonomous University, Mexico)
Speakers: Prabhat PATNAIK (Jawaharlal Nehru University, India) Juan SANTARCANGELO (National University of Quilmes, Argentina) Eric TOUSSAINT (Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt, Belgium) David BARKIN (Metropolitan Autonomous University, Mexico
Regenerating the social tissue of hope : walking with Gustavo Esteva
No full textModerators: LAU Kin Chi (Lingnan University, China) Elias GONZALEZ (Jesuit University of Guadalajara, Mexico)
Speakers: Juan MAYORGA (Assembly of Unitierra Oaxaca, Mexico) Guadalupe SANTAELLA (Unitierra Oaxaca, Mexico) Catherine MARIELLE (Grupo de Estudios Ambientales, Mexico) Mauricio del VILLAR ZAMACONA (Assembly of Unitierra Oaxaca, Mexico) Vasna RAMASAR (Global Tapestry of Alternatives) Franco AUGUSTO (Global Tapestry of Alternatives
李善《文選注》引書義例考
Get PDF李善《文選注》徵引浩繁，引書義例複雜。本文依據其引用文獻之實際情況，參考注中隨文標示之相關義例，從引用目的、書名標舉、引文處理三個方面系統、深入地考察了李善《文選注》引書之義例系統。把握李善注引書義例，有益於把握李善注及其所引文獻，乃至《文選》本文。
This article provides a systematic and comprehensive analysis of the numerous citations and their complex principles in Li Shan’s 李善 Wenxuan zhu 文選注 (Annotations to Selections of Refined Literature) through their purpose, title, and text. The article contributes to a deeper understanding of Li Shan’s annotations and citations, and moreover, the texts in Wenxuan文選 (Selections of Refined Literature)
Democratization by foreign intervention : how different causes of intervention affect the outcome of democratization?
Get PDFIn examining the external intervention in order to promote democratization after the Cold War, there have been five kinds of conflicts (transition to independence, the civil war, the ethnic conflict, removing the dictatorship, and the ‘war on terror’) necessitating international interventions. While the foreign interveners attempt to solve the conflict by promoting democracy in the target society, the nature of these contexts complicates the mission and the ‘transitional phases’. Specifically, this thesis suggested that the elite composition of different contexts will affect the formation of elite consensus. Meanwhile, their difficulty in forming elite consensus can be arranged in ascending order: Transition to independence, Removing dictatorship, Civil war, Ethnic conflict/ War on terror. This thesis concluded three major aspects that concern by the elites in the target society during democratic transitions. They are the guarantee of future access to power, the means of sustaining their position in democratic government, and the relative power distribution in the short term after adopting democracy