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Begin New Search Topic Education Content Type Working Paper Publication Year within 5 Years

11. Applying an intergenerational mindset to European technology investments

Author:
Fabian Zuleeg
Publication Date:
11-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
European Policy Centre (EPC)
Abstract:
Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine and the upcoming winter of discontent have accelerated the permacrisis, with serious consequences, not just in the short term, but also for Europe’s future. If the EU proves unable to work together and address today’s strategic challenges, member states risk leaving future generations with a Europe that is economically, politically, and socially fragmented and constrained. But this is not the moment for defeatism. Rather, the EU should adopt an intergenerational approach across all policy areas, asking: how will our reactions to today’s severe challenges affect future generations? This should include a common investment strategy: to counter our common societal challenges and crises, the EU should invest in technology and education, increasing Europe’s human and intellectual capital. However, despite technology’s prominence in the EU political agenda, the Union still struggles to make decisive steps to achieve global leadership in many areas. This Discussion Paper argues that the EU should have access to and control over new technologies to guarantee that these “public goods” are, at least in part, in common ownership. Taking equity stakes in technology should be at the heart of the European Sovereignty Fund, announced by Ursula von der Leyen in her 2022 State of the Union speech. Additionally, member states should work together to create a better environment for future private investment by harnessing the power of the Single Market and completing the Capital Markets Union. By adopting this intergenerational mindset, the EU can start the process of building technological wealth which will be accessible to everyone and help tackle Europe’s fundamental challenges. This new investment strategy will offer hope and ensure that the EU can provide peace, prosperity, and sustainability for the current and, more importantly, future generations.
Topic:
Education, Science and Technology, European Union, Investment, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Ukraine

12. Elementary education in India versus China: Guidelines for NEP implementation

Author:
Naveen Kumar and Vinitha Varghese
Publication Date:
06-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper documents the state of elementary education in India and China since the 1960s, key lessons for India from China’s shift in focus from ‘quantity’ to ‘quality’, and evidencebased guidelines for effective implementation of India’s New Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020). The divergent policy focus has led to differential trajectories for elementary education in the two emerging economies, with China being decades ahead in improving literacy rates. China’s adoption of the New Curriculum Reform 20 years before India’s NEP 2020 has put China on the path to achieving equitable development of ‘quality’ compulsory schooling. India’s NEP 2020 has components that have the potential to improve quality, equity, and efficiency of the education system. This paper makes the following recommendations for effective implementation of some of the NEP 2020 components: (1) an additional worker should be recruited at every preschool centre; (2) more resources should be allocated towards implementation, evaluation, and needed recalibration of the management of school clusters; (3) teacher recruitment, training, and rewards should be revamped; (4) standardized tests should be protected from data corruption, fudging, or grade inflation; and (5) a national-level road map and regular evaluations have to be introduced to ensure participation of socio-economically disadvantaged groups in education.
Topic:
Education, Literacy, and Schools
Political Geography:
China, South Asia, India, and Asia

13. Is economic development affected by the leaders’ education levels?

Author:
Chandan Jain, Shagun Kashyap, Rahul Lahoti, and Soham Sahoo
Publication Date:
06-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Although formal education is often considered an indicator of political leaders’ quality, the evidence on the effectiveness of educated leaders is mixed. Besides, minimum education qualifications are increasingly being used as requirements for contesting elections, making it critical to understand the role of politicians’ education in their performance. We investigate the impact of electing an educated politician on economic development in the politician’s constituency in India. We use constituency-level panel data on the intensity of night-time lights to measure economic activity. Our identification strategy is based on a regression discontinuity design that exploits quasirandom outcomes of close elections between educated and less-educated politicians. We find that narrowly electing a graduate leader, as compared to a non-graduate leader, in the state assembly constituency increases the growth rate of night-time lights by about three percentage points in the constituency. As pathways, we find that graduate leaders improve the provision of roads, electricity, and power; however, they do not significantly impact the overall provision of public goods. In comparison with findings from other studies in the literature, our result suggests that the impact of formal education of the leader is weaker than the leader’s other characteristics, such as gender or criminality.
Topic:
Education, Politics, Elections, and Leadership
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

14. Labour market effects of digital matching platforms: Experimental evidence from sub-Saharan Africa

Author:
Sam Jones and Kunal Sen
Publication Date:
06-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Can digital labour market platforms reduce search frictions in either formal or informal labour markets? We study this question using a randomized experiment embedded in a tracer study of the work transitions of graduates from technical and vocational colleges in Mozambique. We implement an encouragement design, inviting graduates by SMS to join one of two local digital platforms: Biscate, a site to find freelancers for informal manual tasks; and Emprego, a conventional formal jobs website. In contrast to positive estimates of the contribution of both platforms to job outcomes from naïve (per-treatment) estimates, both intent-to-treat and complier average treatment effects are consistently zero in the full sample, while the impact on life satisfaction is negative. However, use of the informal jobs platform leads to better work outcomes for women, especially those with manual qualifications, for whom earnings rise by over 50 per cent.
Topic:
Education, Labor Issues, Digital Economy, and Unemployment
Political Geography:
Africa and Mozambique

15. Impact of teacher content knowledge on student achievement in a low-income country

Author:
Anna Holvio
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper estimates the causal impact of teacher content knowledge on student achievement in Mozambique, a low-income country where a large share of fourth-graders fail to meet the minimum requirements of literacy and numeracy. I use nationally representative data from the Service Delivery Indicator survey, and exploit within-student across-subject variation in a sample of students taught by the same teacher in maths and Portuguese, thus circumventing bias caused by unobserved student and teacher heterogeneity. I find that, on average, teacher content knowledge does not have an impact on student achievement. However, the impact varies significantly by student’s first language, urban or rural location of the school, and the match of students and teachers in their knowledge.
Topic:
Education, Literacy, and Teachers
Political Geography:
Africa and Mozambique

16. Affirmative action: meaning, intentions, and impacts in the big picture

Author:
Satu Kuitunen
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper provides a broad overview of the meaning of affirmative action and its intended and unintended impacts. The paper is a literature review and does not make any arguments specifically for or against affirmative action but describes the broad arguments and findings in the existing literature. Central to the definition of affirmative action is its proactive nature in rectifying horizontal inequalities and historical wrongdoing. Motivations can be ethical, economic, or political. The designation criteria and the scope of affirmative action also vary across countries, which affects how its effectiveness and value are measured. Affirmative action can have positive intended impacts as well as adverse unintended impacts, and the jury is still out on its overall effectiveness. Affirmative action has also been implemented on the grounds of conflict management, but the results have been mixed, and the evidence of affirmative action as a conflict management tool is limited.
Topic:
Education, Inequality, Literature Review, and Affirmative Action
Political Geography:
Global Focus

17. Managing for Motivation as Public Performance Improvement Strategy in Education & Far Beyond

Author:
Dan Honig
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
People management has an important role to play in improving public agency performance. This paper argues that a ‘Route Y’ managerial approach focused on supporting the empowered exercise of employee judgment will in many circumstances prove superior to conventional reform approaches steeped in ‘Route X’ monitoring and incentives. Returns to Route Y are greater when employees are or can become more “mission motivated” – that is, aligned with the goals of the agency in the absence of monitoring and extrinsic incentives. Returns to Route Y are also greater when monitoring is incomplete or otherwise likely to unproductively distort effort, thus lowering the returns to using performance-linked rewards and penalties. I argue that education systems are one (but far from the only) setting where Route Y is a lever worth focusing on in efforts to improve public performance in the developed and developing world alike.
Topic:
Development, Education, Public Policy, Performance Evaluation, and Project Management
Political Geography:
Global Focus

18. Getting Real about Unknowns in Complex Policy Work

Author:
Matt Andrews
Publication Date:
02-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
As with all public policy work, education policies are demanding. Policy workers need to ‘know’ a lot—about the problems they are addressing, the people who need to be engaged, the promises they can make in response, the context they are working in, and the processes they will follow to implement. Most policy workers answer questions about such issues within the structures of plan and control processes used to devise budgets and projects. These structures limit their knowledge gathering, organization and sense-making activities to up-front planning activities, and even though sophisticated tools like Theories of Change suggest planners ‘know’ all that is needed for policy success, they often do not. Policies are often fraught with ‘unknowns’ that cannot be captured in passive planning processes and thus repeatedly undermine even the best laid plans. Through a novel strategy that asks how much one knows about the answers to 25 essential policy questions, and an application to recent education policy interventions in Mozambique, this paper shows that it is possible to get real about unknowns in policy work. Just recognizing these unknowns exist—and understanding why they do and what kind of challenge they pose to policy workers—can help promote a more modest and realistic approach to doing complex policy work.
Topic:
Education, Government, and Public Policy
Political Geography:
Africa and Mozambique

19. Standardization and ethnocracy in Sri Lanka

Author:
Neil DeVotta
Publication Date:
08-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Standardization was the scheme that replaced meritocracy in Sri Lanka education, with positive discrimination to increase the majority Sinhalese community’s university enrolment. It did so by minimizing better-qualified minority Tamils’ university entry, even as the quest for Tamil separatism was gaining ground. The government claimed the scheme was justified to create a more balanced representation in science-based university fields, but it was among the policies that contributed to the island becoming an ethnocracy. While standardization was later discarded, its legacy continues thanks to the district quota system it fostered and the inequalities it helped to cement between ethnic groups. Ultimately, standardization did not merely complicate existing inequalities; it also contributed to anomie and substandard professionalism within the educational and governmental sectors. A path dependence explanation helps us to better understand why the policy was instituted, and why district quotas continue to operate.
Topic:
Education, Inequality, Ethnicity, Separatism, Standardization, Path Dependency, and Ethnocracy
Political Geography:
South Asia and Sri Lanka

20. The Short-Term Labor Market Impact of Venezuelan Immigration in Peru

Author:
Celia P. Vera and Juan Pablo Jiménez
Publication Date:
10-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Distributive, Labor and Social Studies (CEDLAS)
Abstract:
Peru is the second-largest recipient of Venezuelans worldwide. We combine newly available data on Venezuelans living in Peru and the Peruvian Household Survey to assess the impact of Venezuelan migration on natives’ wages and employment. The initial regression analysis exploits the variation in supply shifts across education-experience groups over time. It indicates that immigration in Peru had no adverse impact on native wages. However, the paper highlights that in Peru immigrants and natives with similar education and experience are likely to work in different occupations. The subsequent analysis based on occupational clustering confirms the null effect on wages and indicates that a 20% increase in immigrants decreases formal employment by 6%. We do not find evidence for changes in employment composition toward informality so that migration operates through the extensive margin of employment. We report evidence in favor of immigrants being a close substitute to the least productive natives, suggesting that firms substitute native formal labor for low-cost immigrant informal labor.
Topic:
Education, Immigration, Labor Market, and Informal Economy
Political Geography:
South America, Venezuela, and Peru