Choosing Mandarin Senegal’s public and private schools keep up with demand for study of the Chinese language

In Dakar, Happy Kids Kindergarten has set itself an ambitious challenge： to teach Senegalese toddlers to speak Chinese. This kindergarten, located in Ngor District, boasts of being the first trilingual school in Senegal. In addition to French （the country＇s official language） and English, the school also teaches Mandarin. With China being the world＇s most popu lous country and second largest economy, there is much to benefit from it this decision.

“Screening”or“Meritocracy”:Does the Choice of a Private School Help Students Achieve Higher Academic Performance?-Based on the PISA 2018 Analysis of Four Provinces and Municipalities in China

The introduced policy of“synchronized enrollment of public and private schools”has once again triggered the debate on the effectiveness of public and private schools.Based on the data of the Program for International Student Assessment(PISA)2018 from four Chinese provinces and municipalities,this paper explores whether private schools gain a relative advantage in student academic performance through student“screening”or academic“meritocracy,”through a hierarchical linear model(HLM)and an empirical test of the propensity score matching(PSM).It has been found that the academic performance of students in private schools is significantly better than that in public schools.But with background,metacognitive ability,and learning hours of students in private schools controlled for,such academic performance is not significantly superior,suggesting that private schools rely heavily on student“screening”to achieve a relative advantage in student academic performance.This finding has also verified the scientific nature of the above policy.

Education Voucher Scheme in India: Would Lead to School Choice and Universal Education?

To remove obstacles in the path of‘Education for All’,the government of India launched several programs,Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan(SSA)being one of them.Despite several attempts,the government has failed to be successful in providing education to all students and the impact of such schemes has not been very good at the ground level.In India,children are not absent from school owing to a lack of demand;rather,low quality of government education delivery is a major cause for their absence.There is a need to redefine the Indian education system or policy to a new level as government schools are unable to fulfil the growing demand for high-quality education.Direct government funding to children or parents rather than schools can provide parents or children with the ability to select the school of their choice,whether it is a government or private school.This may be accomplished through the education voucher scheme.Governments do not need to spend any additional public funds on vouchers to implement this approach.The education voucher scheme deserves an effort among the several approaches that are being pursued to improve school education.

Peer Pressure and Family Smoking Habits Influence Smoking Uptake in Teenage Boys Attending School: Multilevel Modeling of Survey Data

Introduction: Among young teens, about one in five smokes worldwide. Adolescents spend a considerable amount of their time in school, and the school environment is therefore important for child health practices and outcomes. Objectives: We aimed to investigate the impact on smoking behavior of the school environment and the personal characteristics of male teenage students attending schools in Pakistan, taking into account the survey sampling structure. Methods: A two-stage cluster sampling with stratification was employed, and we interviewed 772 male secondary school students. We adopted random effect and generalizing estimating equation models. Results: Peer pressure in particular had a strong influence on adolescents smoking;those whose friends smoked were up to 6 times more likely to smoke. Family smoking was also significantly associated with adolescents smoking, but those students whose mother was educated were 50% less likely to smoke. The fitted random effect model indicated that the between school variability was significant (p-value < 0.01), indicating differences in smoking habits between schools. A random coefficient model showed that variability among schools was not significantly different for public and private schools. Conclusion: Public health campaigns for smoking cessation should target not only the individual but also the families of adolescents attending schools.