15 research outputs found
Influence of Teacher Utilisation on Student Academic Achievement in Public Secondary Schools in Southwestern Nigeria
No full textThis study investigated the influence of Teacher Utilisation - TU (Teacher Workload - TW, Class Size - CS) on Student Academic Achievement (SAA) in Public Senior Secondary Schools (PSSS) in Southwestern Nigeria. The study adopted the descriptive survey research design of correlational type. The multi-stage sampling procedure and simple random sampling technique were used to select three (Oyo, Ogun, and Ekiti) States out of the six in Southwestern Nigeria and one Senatorial District (SD) from each State. The proportionate-to-size sampling technique was used to select 40% of the Local Government Areas (LGAs) in each of the SDs, and 50% (101) of the schools in the sampled LGAs. A class of 3,030 PSSS II was used; 202 Mathematics and English Language teachers while 101 school administrators were enumerated. The instruments were TW Questionnaire (?=0.78); CS Inventory (?=0.75); English Language Achievement Test-ELAT (KR-20=7.47) and Mathematics Achievement Test-MAT (KR-20=7.46). Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and multiple regression at a 0.05 level of significance. Respondents’ ages were 46.5±5.20 years (teachers) and 17.60±1.60 years (students). There were 59.0% male teachers and 57.0% female students. The TU was (x =2.0) against the threshold of 2.5. Also, teachers were overutilised (TU: 74.3% had more than 40 students/class and 57.4% taught more than 24 periods/week which is the maximum threshold). Therefore, TU (ß=0.25, t=3.13) made a significant contribution to SAA. Hence, teacher utilisation influenced student academic achievement in public senior secondary schools in Southwestern Nigeria and it should be given attention by all the education stakeholders for improved student academic achievement
A Microscopic Examination of the Educational system between China and Nigeria: A Comparative Study
No full textThe article uses a comparative approach to analyse the educational systems of China and Nigeria. It examines the present approaches involved in Chinese and Nigerian educational systems. And in the final analysis, it also compares the education of Chinese students and Nigerian students. Secondary qualitative data were used in both explanatory and descriptive approach. Empirical studies that are related to education system in both China and Nigeria were also assessed. These types of data are mostly used in both survey type and case study analyses. Thus, case study research method is used in the article. Data gathered were presented to compare the education system in both China and Nigeria. The gathered data were used to juxtapose and compare the education systems in both China and Nigeria. The article is expected to: provide better understanding of China and Nigeria education systems; provide a vivid comparison of educational systems of China and Nigeria; show comparisons of Chinese and Nigerian students and give suggestions as to the ways by which the education systems of both countries could be enhanced. Key Words: Chinese Education system, Nigerian Education System, Comparisons between Chinese and Nigerian Education Systems. DOI: 10.7176/JEP/10-32-02 Publication date: November 30th 201
Demilitarisation Nigeria and South Africa compared
No full textIn sub-Saharan African countries that have made democratic transition from military
rule and military-backed authoritarian regimes, state elites have embarked upon
strategies aimed at demilitarising the new democratic political process. Demilitarisation
of the state and politics has become an imperative because it is decisive for
consolidating democratic politics and for ensuring improvements in public safety and
security. Yet the process of such demilitarisation in these countries has often generated
a paradox, whereby the reduction of the political influence of state institutions of
violence has been associatedw ith rising civil militarism and the prevalenceo f organised
violence in the wider society.
In these circumstances, taking cognisance of the dangers of civil militarism and other
forms of private violence is a priority for designing and implementing demilitarisation
strategies and other security reforms in post-authoritarian African states. Reformminded
political elites and external supporters need to be sensitive to these dangers or
risk perpetuating the shell of electoral democracy that cannot deliver the goal of human
security in the region. This dissertation explored how the current approach to
demilitarisation is related to the problem of civil militarism by examining the case
studies of Nigeria and South Africa. It explains that given the condition of the state in
Africa, demilitarisation of politics after transition from military or military-backed
authoritarianism contributes to the emergence of civil militarism. Based on this finding,
it argues for a comprehensive approach to demilitarisation as a strategy that caters to
both state and societal violence in order to mitigate the risks of civil militarism in the
process
Knowledge socialism in the COVID-19 era: a collective exploration of needs, forms, and possibilities
No full textThe inspiration for this collective writing project began with a digital conference entitled ‘Knowledge Socialism, COVID-19 and the New Reality of Education’ held at Beijing Normal University. In this conference and through this article, multiple researchers spread across six continents have engaged in the collaborative task of outlining emerging innovations and alternative contingencies towards education, international collaboration, and digital reform in this time of global crisis. Trends associated with digital education, knowledge openness, peer production, and collective intelligence as articulated by Michael A. Peters’ conception of Knowledge Socialism are given careful analysis and exploration. Some of the members of this collective endeavor to identify problems, others, begin to draw boxes around potential solutions. Overall, this article engages with real world challenges and innovations that look beyond dominant neoliberal trends in the knowledge economy to build bridges toward novel possibilities in this era of rapid digital change
Teaching in the Age of Covid-19—The New Normal
No full textThis collection, titled ‘Teaching in the Age of Covid-19—The New Normal’, is a collection of short testimonies and workspace photographs submitted in the first half of 2022. In numbers, the collection consists of 67 textual testimonies and 65 workspace photographs submitted by 69 authors from 19 countries: USA (13), New Zealand (8), India (7), Sweden (6), UK (6), Australia (5), Denmark (4), Canada (3), China (2), Croatia (2), Finland (2), Ireland (2), Nigeria (2), Tanzania (2), Brazil (1), Germany (1), Latvia (1), Spain (1) and South Africa (1). Some contributors have submitted unchanged biographies; others have experienced various life changes and sent us updates. Some contributors have told us that their workspaces have remained the same; others submitted images of their new or upgraded workspaces
Teaching in the Age of Covid-19 – 1 Year Later
No full textOn 17 March 2021 we invited all authors of ‘Teaching in the Age of Covid-19’ (Jandrić et al. 2020) to reflect on their pandemic experience 1 year later.3 Mirroring the original article’s format, in ‘Teaching in the Age of Covid-19—1 Year Later’, we requested short testimonies, biographies, and workspace photographs. In numbers, the 1-year-later collection consists of 74 textual testimonies and 76 workspace photographs submitted by 77 authors from 20 countries: USA (14), UK (7), China (3), India (7), Australia (6), New Zealand (8), Denmark (5), Sweden (6), Croatia (3), Canada (4), Spain (2), Nigeria (1), Finland (2), Ireland (2), Malta (1), Tanzania (2), Malaysia (1), Latvia (1), South Africa (1), and Germany (1). ‘As it is common in academia, many authors are expats and carry multiple identities; the collection reflects places of writing their testimonies rather than places of their origin.’ (Jandrić et al. 2020: 1070) Some contributors have submitted unchanged biographies; others have experienced various life changes and sent us updates.4 Some contributors have told us that their workspaces have remained the same; others submitted images of their new or upgraded workspaces.
Teaching in the age of Covid-19
No full textThis is an accepted manuscript of an article published by Springer in Postdigital Science and Education on 07/08/2020.
The published version of record can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-020-00169-6.
The accepted version of the publication may differ from the final published version
Global PIQA: Evaluating Physical Commonsense Reasoning Across 100+ Languages and Cultures
No full textTo date, there exist almost no culturally-specific evaluation benchmarks for large language models (LLMs) that cover a large number of languages and cultures. In this paper, we present Global PIQA, a participatory commonsense reasoning benchmark for over 100 languages, constructed by hand by 335 researchers from 65 countries around the world. The 116 language varieties in Global PIQA cover five continents, 14 language families, and 23 writing systems. In the non-parallel split of Global PIQA, over 50% of examples reference local foods, customs, traditions, or other culturally-specific elements. We find that state-of-the-art LLMs perform well on Global PIQA in aggregate, but they exhibit weaker performance in lower-resource languages (up to a 37% accuracy gap, despite random chance at 50%). Open models generally perform worse than proprietary models. Global PIQA highlights that in many languages and cultures, everyday knowledge remains an area for improvement, alongside more widely-discussed capabilities such as complex reasoning and expert knowledge. Beyond its uses for LLM evaluation, we hope that Global PIQA provides a glimpse into the wide diversity of cultures in which human language is embedded.See §A for author list. Global PIQA would not be possible without the efforts of all of the authors. Wealso thank several anonymous contributors who preferred not to be authors on this paper. The research of Yolanda Xavier is supported by Portuguese national funding through the FCT– Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P. as part of the project UID/3213/2025– Linguistics Research Centre of NOVA University Lisbon (CLUNL) and by the Doctoral Grant (FCT PhD grant) number 2022.13977.BD from the same funder. Group 0025 is supported by the following grants: CLARIN-PL (POIR.04.02.00-00C002/19, FENG.02.04-IP.040004/24, 2024/WK/01), DARIAH-PL (POIR.04.02.00-00-D006/20, KPOD.01.18-IW.03-0013/23). Annika Simonsen was funded by the European Commission under grant agreement no. 101135671. CEB has been partially funded by the German ministry for education and research (BMBF) through the TRAILS project (grant number 01IW24005). Group 0070 is supported by funding from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)- Center of Excellence for Generative AI, under award number 5940. Group 0079 would like to thank Mr. Sudhir R. Narayana for help with correction and verification of items in their dataset. Sina Ahmadi gratefully acknowledges support from the University of Zurich (UZH) Postdoc Grant (reference number 269093). Group 0133 would like to thank the MbazaNLP community, including students from the University of Rwanda, School of Art and Languages. We would also like to thank Yonatan Bisk for useful insights into the original PIQA dataset
Mapping geographical inequalities in oral rehydration therapy coverage in low-income and middle-income countries, 2000-17
No full textAbstract: Background Oral rehydration solution (ORS) is a form of oral rehydration therapy (ORT) for diarrhoea that has the potential to drastically reduce child mortality; yet, according to UNICEF estimates, less than half of children younger than 5 years with diarrhoea in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) received ORS in 2016. A variety of recommended home fluids (RHF) exist as alternative forms of ORT; however, it is unclear whether RHF prevent child mortality. Previous studies have shown considerable variation between countries in ORS and RHF use, but subnational variation is unknown. This study aims to produce high-resolution geospatial estimates of relative and absolute coverage of ORS, RHF, and ORT (use of either ORS or RHF) in LMICs. Methods We used a Bayesian geostatistical model including 15 spatial covariates and data from 385 household surveys across 94 LMICs to estimate annual proportions of children younger than 5 years of age with diarrhoea who received ORS or RHF (or both) on continuous continent-wide surfaces in 2000-17, and aggregated results to policy-relevant administrative units. Additionally, we analysed geographical inequality in coverage across administrative units and estimated the number of diarrhoeal deaths averted by increased coverage over the study period. Uncertainty in the mean coverage estimates was calculated by taking 250 draws from the posterior joint distribution of the model and creating uncertainty intervals (UIs) with the 2 center dot 5th and 97 center dot 5th percentiles of those 250 draws. Findings While ORS use among children with diarrhoea increased in some countries from 2000 to 2017, coverage remained below 50% in the majority (62 center dot 6%; 12 417 of 19 823) of second administrative-level units and an estimated 6 519 000 children (95% UI 5 254 000-7 733 000) with diarrhoea were not treated with any form of ORT in 2017. Increases in ORS use corresponded with declines in RHF in many locations, resulting in relatively constant overall ORT coverage from 2000 to 2017. Although ORS was uniformly distributed subnationally in some countries, within-country geographical inequalities persisted in others; 11 countries had at least a 50% difference in one of their units compared with the country mean. Increases in ORS use over time were correlated with declines in RHF use and in diarrhoeal mortality in many locations, and an estimated 52 230 diarrhoeal deaths (36 910-68 860) were averted by scaling up of ORS coverage between 2000 and 2017. Finally, we identified key subnational areas in Colombia, Nigeria, and Sudan as examples of where diarrhoeal mortality remains higher than average, while ORS coverage remains lower than average. Interpretation To our knowledge, this study is the first to produce and map subnational estimates of ORS, RHF, and ORT coverage and attributable child diarrhoeal deaths across LMICs from 2000 to 2017, allowing for tracking progress over time. Our novel results, combined with detailed subnational estimates of diarrhoeal morbidity and mortality, can support subnational needs assessments aimed at furthering policy makers' understanding of within-country disparities. Over 50 years after the discovery that led to this simple, cheap, and life-saving therapy, large gains in reducing mortality could still be made by reducing geographical inequalities in ORS coverage. Copyright (c) 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY 4.0 license
Tracking development assistance for health and for COVID-19: a review of development assistance, government, out-of-pocket, and other private spending on health for 204 countries and territories, 1990-2050
No full textBackground The rapid spread of COVID-19 renewed the focus on how health systems across the globe are financed, especially during public health emergencies. Development assistance is an important source of health financing in many low-income countries, yet little is known about how much of this funding was disbursed for COVID-19. We aimed to put development assistance for health for COVID-19 in the context of broader trends in global health financing, and to estimate total health spending from 1995 to 2050 and development assistance for COVID-19 in 2020. Methods We estimated domestic health spending and development assistance for health to generate total health-sector spending estimates for 204 countries and territories. We leveraged data from the WHO Global Health Expenditure Database to produce estimates of domestic health spending. To generate estimates for development assistance for health, we relied on project-level disbursement data from the major international development agencies' online databases and annual financial statements and reports for information on income sources. To adjust our estimates for 2020 to include disbursements related to COVID-19, we extracted project data on commitments and disbursements from a broader set of databases (because not all of the data sources used to estimate the historical series extend to 2020), including the UN Office of Humanitarian Assistance Financial Tracking Service and the International Aid Transparency Initiative. We reported all the historic and future spending estimates in inflation-adjusted 2020 US per capita, purchasing-power parity-adjusted US8. 8 trillion (95% uncertainty interval UI] 8.7-8.8) or 40.4 billion (0.5%, 95% UI 0.5-0.5) was development assistance for health provided to low-income and middle-income countries, which made up 24.6% (UI 24.0-25.1) of total spending in low-income countries. We estimate that 13.7 billion was targeted toward the COVID-19 health response. 1.4 billion was repurposed from existing health projects. 2.4 billion (17.9%) was for supply chain and logistics. Only 1519 (1448-1591) per person in 2050, although spending across countries is expected to remain varied. Interpretation Global health spending is expected to continue to grow, but remain unequally distributed between countries. We estimate that development organisations substantially increased the amount of development assistance for health provided in 2020. Continued efforts are needed to raise sufficient resources to mitigate the pandemic for the most vulnerable, and to help curtail the pandemic for all. Copyright (C) 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd
