A geodemographic classification of sub-districts to identify education inequality in Central Beijing

Inequity in accessibility to urban parks in environmental gentrification areas based on Multi-G3SFCA: A case study of Wuhan’s main urban districts

Purpose This paper explores the extent to which the period 2012–2021, when the General Education Quality Improvement Programme (GEQIP) reforms to primary education were implemented in Ethiopia, is one of educational improvement, despite the absence of gains in learning outcomes. It examines trends in access, learning progress in Grade 4 school quality and in equity of access and outcomes across regions and between urban and rural contexts. Design/methodology/approach Data from several sources are employed including Ethiopian national education data (Education Management Information Systems (EMIS)) and longitudinal school survey data from the Young Lives (YL) and Research on Improving Systems of Education (RISE) projects. Analysis employs descriptive analysis and regression modelling in a value-added framework. Trends in learning outcomes in mathematics and pupil backgrounds are examined alongside school quality, its measures and predictors. Findings Access to primary education in Ethiopia has expanded significantly, with some equity improvements. Learning outcomes have declined in most regions, in Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples (SNNP) from a mean score of 515 in 2012 to 436 in 2020. Several school and teacher quality indicators targeted by GEQIP improved modestly, including teacher maths scores which improved from a mean of 462 to 507. Improvements have not been sufficient however to outweigh effects of rapid expansion and rising disadvantage, perhaps worsened by shocks including COVID and conflict. Originality/value This research contributes to understanding the role of the GEQIP reforms in improving primary education in Ethiopia. It may inform policy on targeted education quality improvement. It informs wider debate on the “learning crisis” especially in sub-Saharan Africa.

This paper looks at the private schooling sector in Pakistan, a country that is seriously behind schedule in achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Using new data, the authors document the phenomenal rise of the private sector in Pakistan and show that an increasing segment of children enrolled in private schools are from rural areas and from middle-class and poorer families. The key element in their rise is their low fees - the average fee of a rural private school in Pakistan is less than a dime a day (Rs.6). They hire predominantly local, female, and moderately educated teachers who have limited alternative opportunities outside the village. Hiring these teachers at low cost allows the savings to be passed on to parents through low fees. This mechanism - the need to hire teachers with a certain demographic profile so that salary costs are minimized - defines the possibility of private schools: where they arise, fees are low. It also defines their limits. Private schools are horizontally constrained in that they arise in villages where there is a pool of secondary educated women. They are also vertically constrained in that they are unlikely to cater to the secondary levels in rural areas, at least until there is an increase in the supply of potential teachers with the required skills and educational levels.

A Dime a Day: The Possibilities and Limits of Private Schooling in Pakistan

Urban green spaces encourage outdoor activity and social communication that contribute to the health of local residents. Examining the relationship between the use of urban green spaces and factors influencing their utilization can provide essential references for green space site selection in urban planning. In contrast to previous studies that focused on internal factors, this study highlights the external factors (traffic convenience, population density and commercial facilities) contributing to the use of urban green spaces. We conducted a spatiotemporal analysis of the distribution of visitors in 208 selected green spaces in central Beijing. We examined the relationship between the spatial pattern of visitor distribution within urban green spaces and external factors, using the Gini coefficient, kernel density estimation, and geographical detectors. The results of the study were as follows. The spatial distribution of visitors within central Beijing’s green spaces was concentrated, forming different agglomerations. The three examined external factors are all associated with the use of green spaces. Among them, commercial facilities are the important external factor associated with the use of green spaces. For the selection of sites for urban green spaces, we recommend consideration of external factors in order to balance urban green space utilization.

市域生态空间是城乡发展的绿色基底和生态基础，其协同联系"山水林田湖草"各生态系统，是动植物和自然生态多种过程的空间载体，同时也是人类进行社会经济活动的场所，与城乡经济社会发展息息相关，良好的市域生态空间体系，是实现市域层面生态系统稳定，协调城市发展和自然保护的重要载体，同时也是实现城市健康良性发展的重要保障。现有的市域生态空间规划重视不够，其静态的、定性为主的规划方法严重滞后，存在一系列不足与缺陷：1）重城区，轻市域；2）重主观定性，轻客观定量；3）重被动落实，轻主动响应；4）重静态蓝图，轻动态模拟。其空间规划成果远不能达到预期，无法应对城市化对市域生态环境和资源所带来的影响和威胁。以宁波市域空间为对象，以市域生态空间演变为出发点，从生态空间的安全格局、结构特征和用地类型转移3个方面，通过对2000年、2010年和2018年3个时期的市域空间演变的定量化分析，揭示市域生态空间演变的特征与规律。并以此为基础探索新型市域生态空间重构的方法和内容，提出空间优化的策略：针对安全格局层面生态适宜性衰退、结构层面连通度下降、地类层面绿色空间减少的问题等，通过确定生态核心，构建绿色空间廊道，筛选关键节点，对其分别进行分级、保护，最终重新构建起良性的宁波市域生态空间体系，并针对优化结果进行评价与修正。从市域生态空间3种类型演变分析入手，以"演变-响应-重构"为逻辑指导市域生态空间规划，积极探索了应对城市化影响下市域生态空间优化的新方法，为市域山水林田湖草生命综合体的资源保护和科学利用提供了一定的理论。;Urban ecological space is the green base and ecological foundation of urban and rural development, which is synergistically linked to the ecosystems of landscape, water, forest, field, lake and grass, and is the spatial carrier of various processes of flora and fauna and natural ecology, as well as the place for human socio-economic activities, and is closely related to urban and rural economic and social development. A good urban ecological space system is an important carrier to realize the stability of the ecosystem at the municipal level, to coordinate urban development and nature protection, and also an important guarantee to realize the healthy and benign development of the city. The existing municipal ecological spatial planning does not pay enough attention to its static, qualitative-oriented planning methods, which are seriously lagging behind, with a series of deficiencies and defects:1) emphasis on urban areas rather than municipalities; 2) emphasis on subjective qualitative rather than objective quantitative; 3) emphasis on passive implementation rather than active response; 4) emphasis on static blueprints rather than dynamic simulations. Its spatial planning results are far from meeting expectations and cannot cope with the impacts and threats brought by urbanization on the ecological environment and resources of the urban area. This paper selects Ningbo urban space as the object, takes the evolution of urban ecological space as the starting point, and reveals the characteristics and laws of the evolution of urban ecological space from three aspects:security pattern, structural characteristics and land use type transfer of ecological space, through the quantitative analysis of the evolution of urban space in 2000, 2010 and 2018. Based on this, we explore the methods and contents of the new municipal ecological space reconstruction and propose strategies for spatial optimization:to address the problems of declining ecological suitability at the security pattern level, declining connectivity at the structural level, and decreasing green space at the land type level, etc., by identifying ecological cores, organizing green space corridors, screening key nodes, grading and protecting them respectively, and finally reconstructing a benign Ningbo municipal ecological Spatial system of Ningbo city is reconstructed, and the optimization results are evaluated and revised. This study starts from the analysis of the evolution of three types of urban ecological space, and uses the logic of evolution-response-reconstruction to guide the urban ecological space planning, and actively explores a new method for optimizing the urban ecological space under the influence of urbanization, which provides a certain theory for the protection and scientific utilization of resources in the urban landscape, forest, field, lake and grass life complex.

Education inequality is important not only due to its impact on the future of a country, but also due to its immediate impacts on the lives of children. This chapter first reviews the literature from the multi-disciplinary field of childhood studies on how children experience education inequality and what impact this has on their social and emotional well-being. Next, the author uses data from a wide variety of sources to explore how children experience inequality in access to education and the disparities in the quality of schooling.

BackgroundThe progress in coverage of maternal health services in Ethiopia has been rather slow over the past decade and consequently the maternal mortality ratio was very high (673 per 100,000 live births) among the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and remained constant during 2005–11 period. Earlier studies have mostly focused on determinants of maternal health seeking behavior in Ethiopia. However, little is known about the inequality aspects. This study intends to examine socioeconomic inequalities in the uptake of maternal health services and to identify factors that contribute to such inequalities.MethodsData for the study is drawn from three rounds (year 2000, 2005 and 2011) of the Ethiopian Demographic and Health Surveys (EDHS). Concentration curves and the related concentration index (CI) were used to capture inequalities across the full range of socioeconomic status and highlight trends in the uptake of maternal health services in the country. Decomposition analysis was also employed to identify dominant factors that contribute to inequalities in the uptake of maternal healthcare services.ResultsIn this study, there is a general improvement in the uptake of maternal health services in Ethiopia over the past decade which is inequitable to the disadvantage of the poor. Inequalities are much larger in care during giving birth than in other maternal healthcare indicators. Furthermore, despite the progress made in reducing inequalities in the uptake of four antenatal care consultation (ANC) and tetanus toxoid (TT) injection, inequalities in access to health facilities for delivery and skilled assistance during delivery have rather widened over the same period. In all the survey years, inequalities in education and media access significantly contribute to inequalities in maternal health service utilization favoring the non-poor.ConclusionThe challenges to improving the uptake of maternal healthcare services in Ethiopia go beyond improving coverage of the maternal health services. Thus, addressing socioeconomic inequalities in accessing maternal health services is central to resolving challenges of maternal health. Furthermore, as Ethiopia moves forward with the sustainable development agenda, socioeconomic inequalities in uptake of maternal health services should also be continuously monitored.

A social-media-based approach to assessing the effectiveness of equitable housing policy in mitigating education accessibility induced social inequalities in Shanghai, China

The 1993 Survey of Household Income and Wealth, a representative survey of the Italian population covering 24,000 individuals, reports detailed information on children attendance of public and private schools and parents' self-assessment of the quality of public schools in the city of residence. The survey also provides detailed information on the household demographic structure, income and parents' education. The empirical analysis indicates that the quality of schools is one of the driving factors in the choice between private and public schools. The results are robust with respect to the particular quality indicator used and the presence of provincial fixed effects.

W artykule przedstawiono wyniki badań nad statusem społeczno-ekonomicznym studentów kilku polskich uczelni różniących się pod względem prestiżu. Starano się w nim odpowiedzieć na pytanie: Co sprawia, że dana osoba wybiera studia na tej, a nie innej uczelni wyższej? Pytanie to ma szczególną wagę w kontekście polskiego systemu szkolnictwa wyższego, co do którego uzasadnione wydają się założenia o zróżnicowaniu jakościowym uczelni oraz wynikającym m.in. z umasowienia kształcenia na tym szczeblu zróżnicowaniu społecznym osób podejmujących studia na poszczególnych uczelniach. Dorobek badań nad nierównościami szans edukacyjnych wyraźnie sugeruje, że studenci uczelni o różnym poziomie prestiżu istotnie różnią się pod względem statusu społeczno-ekonomicznego. Potwierdzenie tej hipotezy w zgromadzonych danych pozwoliło na weryfikację kolejnej: można mówić o istnieniu horyzontalnych nierówności w dostępie do szkolnictwa wyższego w Polsce, czyli sytuacji, w której część osób podejmuje studia na uczelniach o niższym prestiżu z powodów innych niż przygotowanie szkolne (spełnianie kryteriów kwalifikacji). Interesujące przy tym jest nie tyle samo odnotowanie tego zjawiska, ile rozpoznanie jego zakresu oraz wywołujących go czynników, a także ich relatywnej siły. Mające temu służyć badanie ankietowe przeprowadzono w drugim kwartale 2015 r. na populacji polskich studentów I i II roku studiów I stopnia w dziedzinie nauk ekonomicznych na uczelniach publicznych i niepublicznych w Polsce.

Quality of schools and inequalities in access: A socio-territorial analysis

Education policy in developing countries is often expressed as a tradeoff between quality of schools and equity of access by students. The analysis behind this book demonstrates that such a distinction may be artificial. The research, which emerged from an effort to improve educational performance in rural northeast Brazil, shows that improving the quality of schools could lead to gains in efficiency that more than offset the direct costs of the improvements. Through the cost savings they generate, quality improvements can also increase equity of access. This quantitative assessment of eduational performance and school promotion in primary schools is unique in its ability to address directly a range of important policy concerns facing developing countries. The study relies on longitudinal data collected over seven years to evaluate the EDURURAL project, an educational intervention by the Brazilian government supported by the World Bank. The extensive data base permits more precise analysis of the underlying determinants of student achievement and promotion than was previously possible. The study includes a standard investigation of teachers and resources. In addition it examines the relationships between both achievement and promotion and student health and promotion and considers the likely effects of differences in teachers' skills and knowledge of subject matter.

The existing literature documents a clear relation between public school quality and a residential real estate price premium. The literature on whether charter school availability and quality are associated with a price premium, however, is surprisingly thin. After controlling for public school quality, we provide evidence that residential real estate price premiums are associated with charter school availability and quality. The price premium is smaller than that of quality public schools, but is economically meaningful when the quality of charter schools exceeds the quality of public schools. The price premium associated with charter schools is more prominent in areas where a large percentage of the population is between the ages of 6 and 18 and for family‐oriented housing types. We also show that the premium associated with quality charter schools varies with school type and is highest for high schools. The findings contribute to the literature on school quality with policy implications relating to school choice options such as charter schools and vouchers.

Potential reduction in urban runoff by green spaces in Beijing: A scenario analysis