The learning gap between urban and rural areas is a persistent problem in many sub-Saharan African countries. Previous studies have found that the urban-rural learning gap is attributed to the fact that student characteristics and school resources are different in urban and rural areas. Our study updates this finding by using the latest dataset and further examines the changes in the attributed sources over time. Using 15 educational systems in sub-Saharan Africa, we examined 4 potential sources of the gap: student, family, teacher, and school characteristics. Our results reveal that the urban-rural learning gap in recent years is attributed mostly to differences in school and family characteristics. We also found that the attribution remains the same over time from 2004 to 2011 and that the attribution to family characteristics’ differences became slightly greater than the one to school characteristics’ differences.
responsive to the primary school completion rate of the recipient country that particular donors found to be strategically important. Similarly, Dreher, Gehring, and Klasen (2014) show evidence of donors' responsiveness concerning gender inequality, and aid went to countries that had larger gender gaps and a lower rate of females in primary school completion and tertiary enrollment from 2002-2011.The evidence from the literature that has examined other motivations to provide educational aid is also limited, which constrains the arguments regarding allocative inefficiency. Turrent and Oketch (2009) examine the relation between educational aid allocation and the fragility level of the recipient country by examining 52 low-income countries from 1999-2006; they find that the countries that are categorized as fragile states receive less aid than the countries that are categorized as non-fragile states. Baulch and Le (2015) examine social sector aid, including education, health and population, between 2009 and 2011 and find that the disbursement pattern of social sector aid simply follows the total development aid pattern. By conducting interviews concerning donors' financing decisions, Steer and Wathne (2010) report that regarding the issue of prioritizing aid to the basic educational sector, donors face many difficulties in their decisions, such as weak prioritization and leadership and little evidence of advocacy.Reviewing the previous literature demonstrates that there are two deficiencies in the literature that constrain the critical arguments for allocative efficiency in the educational sector. First, no studies use a comprehensive data set that includes the total sum of educational aid, which represents the international 'collective commitments' to global educational goals, and that occurs over a long period of time, which allows for the consideration of historical changes in allocation. Second, none of the previous studies thoroughly examines donors' other motivations, which could potentially explain aid allocation in the educational sector. These deficiencies in the literature fail to provide evidence for educational policymakers to evaluate inquiries regarding not only allocative efficiency and, therefore, equal allocation but also the rhetoric concerning the international commitments to educational development. This lack of evidence may cause a decrease in allocative efficiency and the educational aid to be thus ineffective.Accordingly, this study aims to extend the prior literature on donors' motivation to provide educational aid by using the total sum of educational aid and a long time duration and by testing other potential motivations. Following the previous literature, I use the rational choice model as a central theory and examine four particular models, namely, recipient's needs, donor's self-interest, good governance and fragile states. It is noteworthy that the total educational aid includes the aid from multilateral donors, such as the United Nations (UN) and the World Bank. This inclusion of such...
A number of papers have focused on UN policy formulation processes, but little is known about how particular issues come to policymakers' attention in the first place. This very early stage of policy formulation, called agenda setting, remains under researched and more so in multilateral contexts. Applying Kingdon's multiple streams model to the example of the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, this study analyses the trajectory of the policy from being just an idea to the point of being placed on the UN agenda. This paper goes on to argue that there are three conditions that supported the successful trajectory of DESD: a funding-backed policy entrepreneur, policy oligopoly, and a highly predictable policy window. Its theoretical contribution is to fill the gap between current studies and theories by presenting an analysis of one policy in a multilateral context. Development; UNESCO 2 2002 and implemented between 2005 and 2014. The campaign aimed to integrate the principles, values, and practices about sustainable development into all aspects of education and learning. UNESCO is the lead agency and acted as a coordinator to combine efforts made by different UN bodies and other programs and actions by organizations linked to the DESD. After ten years' activities, the report concluded that the DESD succeeded in promoting the awareness of sustainability in many countries, by integrating sustainable development into national policies and advancing learning for the principle and practice of sustainability (UNESCO, 2014). DESD was chosen as a case because it is one of the most recent and influential multilateral policies in the education sector, and moreover is closely related to the current global agenda of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 1 .While many studies about DESD have focused on its effectiveness (Kolleck, 2016;Manteaw, 2012) and on the concept (King, 2009;Mochizuki, 2010;Nordtveit, 2009), the origin and the trajectory of how it became placed on the UN agenda remains under-researched. Understanding how and why the DESD came into being is important not only for filing the gap in the agenda setting literature of multilateral policies but also for current global efforts in achieving SDGs. Methodology Multiple Streams ModelTo analyze the dynamics of DESD's agenda setting, I employ the multiple streams model developed by Kingdon (1987). The model helps to describe the dynamics of the agenda setting by explaining how and why certain problems emerge on the institutional agenda at a given time, but not at others and why certain policies are formulated at certain moments in time. The model contrasts with traditional incremental models such as cycles and stage models (Brewer, 1974;Lasswell, 1956) 2 , which assume that all decisions are made in a rational and systematic manner in a linear process. Kingdon argues that the policy process is irrational and dynamic, and takes place in a policy arena characterized by complex power relations and interrelations between powerful political agents, ideology, tur...
This paper aims to identify the obstructive and promotive factors that affect students' access to school and learning attainment in Zambia. Much of the literature discussing Zambian education identifies only the obstructive factors. When identifying the obstructive factors becomes the primary focus in education policy, efforts are directed towards eliminating these factors without considering the context of the educational process. Consequently, this discourse has lost sight of the fact that eliminating obstructive factors does not guarantee good access to school and learning but merely provides a condition in which students are part of an educational process. This paper presents an explanatory study with in-depth interviews using a semi-structured questionnaire administered to 27 university students. The sample was purposefully selected to balance variation in the respondents in terms of geographical background. The data analysis was aided with the qualitative analysis program NVivo 10 along with the descriptive method. The paper presents empirical insights about multi-faceted factors that affect students' access to school and learning in Zambia. In particular, this study finds that teachers, policy changes, and students' motivation are the key factors in achieving students' academic excellence. By presenting a simultaneous investigation of both sides of the factors related to access to school and learning, this paper contributes by suggesting the importance of a binocular perspective for educational development in Zambia and by providing implications for the new global agenda of post-2015 educational development that shifts the focus from access to quality.
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