Educational Endowments Research Articles

Against Private Schools: culture, power and myths of equality

England's premier league of public schools, educating less than three thousand boys, started life in medieval times as charity schools for the poor. Closely tied to the Church, they found favour as institutions of social mobility. By the turn of the eighteenth century, vandalism and violence were endemic in many; misrule and abuses so common that they provoked one of the leading radicals in Parliament to demand that a proportion of their charitable income be invested in teacher education in a new public education in a new public school. Instead, former public schoolboys in the corridors of power helped ensure their survival and prosperity in the late-Victorian period and beyond. Towards the end of the 1945 Labour government, public intellectual and activist R. H. Tawney said the failure to abolish private schools would undermine the effectiveness of all the other social welfare reforms. This article takes up Tawney's challenge and provides a detailed exposition of the role and contribution of socialist activists and their forgotten radical perspective on the educational endowments they argued had been stolen from the poor.

Modifying the secondary school environment to reduce bullying and aggression: the INCLUSIVE cluster RCT

BackgroundBullying, aggression and violence among children and young people are some of the most consequential public mental health problems.ObjectivesThe INCLUSIVE (initiating change locally in bullying and aggression through the school environment) trial evaluated the Learning Together intervention, which involved students in efforts to modify their school environment using restorative approaches and to develop social and emotional skills. We hypothesised that in schools receiving Learning Together there would be lower rates of self-reported bullying and perpetration of aggression and improved student biopsychosocial health at follow-up than in control schools.DesignINCLUSIVE was a cluster randomised trial with integral economic and process evaluations.SettingForty secondary schools in south-east England took part. Schools were randomly assigned to implement the Learning Together intervention over 3 years or to continue standard practice (controls).ParticipantsA total of 6667 (93.6%) students participated at baseline and 5960 (83.3%) students participated at final follow-up. No schools withdrew from the study.InterventionSchools were provided with (1) a social and emotional curriculum, (2) all-staff training in restorative approaches, (3) an external facilitator to help convene an action group to revise rules and policies and to oversee intervention delivery and (4) information on local needs to inform decisions.Main outcome measuresSelf-reported experience of bullying victimisation (Gatehouse Bullying Scale) and perpetration of aggression (Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime school misbehaviour subscale) measured at 36 months. Intention-to-treat analysis using longitudinal mixed-effects models.ResultsPrimary outcomes – Gatehouse Bullying Scale scores were significantly lower among intervention schools than among control schools at 36 months (adjusted mean difference –0.03, 95% confidence interval –0.06 to 0.00). There was no evidence of a difference in Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime scores. Secondary outcomes – students in intervention schools had higher quality of life (adjusted mean difference 1.44, 95% confidence interval 0.07 to 2.17) and psychological well-being scores (adjusted mean difference 0.33, 95% confidence interval 0.00 to 0.66), lower psychological total difficulties (Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire) score (adjusted mean difference –0.54, 95% confidence interval –0.83 to –0.25), and lower odds of having smoked (odds ratio 0.58, 95% confidence interval 0.43 to 0.80), drunk alcohol (odds ratio 0.72, 95% confidence interval 0.56 to 0.92), been offered or tried illicit drugs (odds ratio 0.51, 95% confidence interval 0.36 to 0.73) and been in contact with police in the previous 12 months (odds ratio 0.74, 95% confidence interval 0.56 to 0.97). The total numbers of reported serious adverse events were similar in each arm. There were no changes for staff outcomes. Process evaluation – fidelity was variable, with a reduction in year 3. Over half of the staff were aware that the school was taking steps to reduce bullying and aggression. Economic evaluation – mean (standard deviation) total education sector-related costs were £116 (£47) per pupil in the control arm compared with £163 (£69) in the intervention arm over the first two facilitated years, and £63 (£33) and £74 (£37) per pupil, respectively, in the final, unfacilitated, year. Overall, the intervention was associated with higher costs, but the mean gain in students’ health-related quality of life was slightly higher in the intervention arm. The incremental cost per quality-adjusted life year was £13,284 (95% confidence interval –£32,175 to £58,743) and £1875 (95% confidence interval –£12,945 to £16,695) at 2 and 3 years, respectively.LimitationsOur trial was carried out in urban and periurban settings in the counties around London. The large number of secondary outcomes investigated necessitated multiple statistical testing. Fidelity of implementation of Learning Together was variable.ConclusionsLearning Together is effective across a very broad range of key public health targets for adolescents.Future workFurther studies are required to assess refined versions of this intervention in other settings.Trial registrationCurrent Controlled Trials ISRCTN10751359.FundingThis project was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Public Health Research programme and will be published in full inPublic Health Research; Vol. 7, No. 18. See the NIHR Journals Library website for further project information. Additional funding was provided by the Educational Endowment Foundation.

Financial Sustainability Criteria for Waqf Institutions: Harvard University as a Model

This study seeks to highlight the best of the Western models in the field of university endowments. It is a model that has been ensconced at the top of the educational pyramid in the United States and Europe for decades. This is due to the management, the investment methodologies and board policies adopted in this model regarding its holdings, investments and disbursements during the past decade. The exemplar of this model is Harvard University, one of the strongest scientific and academic universities in the United States of America; in fact, in the world. It is renowned for its academic strength and financial independence thanks to its endowments, which continue to manifest clear, strong growth. There is no doubt that the approach adopted by the University during the past decade has been very clear, especially in the area of protecting its endowment assets and in reducing expected losses in the area of investments of its endowment assets. This has been done by adopting the investment methodology and performance policies of the Governing Council, in addition to the exceptional performance of its arm for attracting new endowment assets and donations over the last decade. To discuss this experience, the research looks at the financial sustainability criteria adopted by the University to preserve its endowment assets and how the University deals with the risks that beset them. It has itself suffered several investment losses in its endowment assets, as is evident from the company's annual investment management reports. In addition, the University's endowment governance structure with regard to transparency, governance, and internal and external monitoring of its financial assets are discussed. There is no doubt that Harvard’s endowment experience has been pursuant to the endowment activity that has prevailed in several American and European universities, as well as those of Canada, Japan, Singapore and other countries. However, the most prominent and best in performance and investment are the American universities, which have benefited from the legislation in the United States in support of the phenomenon of endowments for the benefit of university education. The study will be limited to Harvard University, while taking into consideration the practical factors that led to the rise of the educational endowment phenomenon in the American university sector in the last two decades. This is approached through two subtopics. The first comprises the most prominent indicators of financial safety of endowment entities. The second is Harvard University Endowments as a model for financial sustainability.

Can Equalizing Educational Endowments Between Men and Women Create More Female Self-employed Value in Nigeria?

This article empirically investigates if women would be able to create more self-employed value if they had the same educational endowments as men in the unique gender disparity context of Nigeria. The article uses probit and Blinder–Oaxaca multivariate decomposition models to empirically conduct this analysis in a developing country taking advantage of two rounds of survey data. The analysis confirms that women would be able to create more self-employed value, particularly higher education self-employed value, if they had the same educational endowments as men. The article also highlights why gender parity does not exist in Nigeria and emphasizes the benefits of gender parity in this context.

Sibling Differences in Educational Polygenic Scores: How Do Parents React?

We take advantage of recent advances in behavioral genetics to revisit a classic question in economics: how do parents respond to children's endowments and to differences in endowments among siblings? Parental investment decisions depend both on parental preferences regarding inequality in the distribution of their children's quality and on how costly it is for parents to add to their children's quality by investing in their human capital (or the price effect). Our empirical strategy allows us to isolate the effect of parental preferences regarding equality from the price effect, a distinction that cannot be made when relying on sibling or twin fixed-effects models. Importantly, we use genetic variants that predict educational attainment as a measure of children's educational endowments. Individuals' genetic makeup is fixed at conception, so these indicators cannot be affected by parental investment decisions. We find evidence that parents of non-twin siblings display inequality aversion and, given the absolute endowment level of one child, they invest more in him/her if his/her sibling is better-endowed. In contrast, parents of twins do not significantly react to endowment differences among their children, likely because it is difficult to provide differential parental investments across children of exactly the same age.

Interprovincial differences in labour force distribution and utilization based on educational attainment in Indonesia, 2002–2015

AbstractIntroducing an employment variable with five levels of educational attainment per capita and employing inequality decomposition, this study addresses three questions. How does labour force vary by education and provinces? How does labour force utilization vary by education and provinces? What are the potential causes of differences? We find that the no‐primary‐education group is more endowed in less‐developed provinces and allocated most unequally among education groups across provinces, despite past universal primary education policies. The senior‐secondary‐education group with the largest labour share is a growing concern due to the lower employment rate and largest interprovincial inequality.

Effects of the Learning Together intervention on bullying and aggression in English secondary schools (INCLUSIVE): a cluster randomised controlled trial

SummaryBackgroundBullying, aggression, and violence among children and young people are some of the most consequential public mental health problems. We tested the Learning Together intervention, which involved students in efforts to modify their school environment using restorative practice and by developing social and emotional skills.MethodsWe did a cluster randomised trial, with economic and process evaluations, of the Learning Together intervention compared with standard practice (controls) over 3 years in secondary schools in south-east England. Learning Together consisted of staff training in restorative practice; convening and facilitating a school action group; and a student social and emotional skills curriculum. Primary outcomes were self-reported experience of bullying victimisation (Gatehouse Bullying Scale; GBS) and perpetration of aggression (Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime (ESYTC) school misbehaviour subscale) measured at 36 months. We analysed data using intention-to-treat longitudinal mixed-effects models. This trial was registered with the ISRCTN registry (10751359).FindingsWe included 40 schools (20 in each group); no schools withdrew. 6667 (93·6%) of 7121 students participated at baseline and 5960 (83·3%) of 7154 at 36 months. Mean GBS bullying score at 36 months was 0·34 (SE 0·02) in the control group versus 0·29 (SE 0·02) in the intervention group, with a significant adjusted mean difference (−0·03, 95% CI −0·06 to −0·001; adjusted effect size −0·08). Mean ESYTC score at 36 months was 4·33 (SE 0·20) in the control group versus 4·04 (0·21) in the intervention group, with no evidence of a difference between groups (adjusted difference −0·13, 95% CI −0·43 to 0·18; adjusted effect size −0·03). Costs were an additional £58 per pupil in intervention schools than in control schools.InterpretationLearning Together had small but significant effects on bullying, which could be important for public health, but no effect on aggression. Interventions to promote student health by modifying the whole-school environment are likely to be one of the most feasible and efficient ways of addressing closely related risk and health outcomes in children and young people.FundingNational Institute for Health Research, Educational Endowment Foundation.

Changes in returns to education for off-farm wage employment: evidence from rural China

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the role of education in the labor market and to understand how returns to education change over time in rural China.Design/methodology/approachUsing nationally representative survey data from 2004 to 2015, this study provides insights on wage determination in the labor market and examines how the returns to education in rural China differ with time and educational endowment. This study applies ordinary least squares estimation and the Heckman selection model to estimate the returns to education.FindingsThe returns to education decreased during the observed years from more than 6 percent in 2004 to only about 3 percent in 2011, rising to nearly 4 percent in 2015. The overall trend is robust and observed within groups defined by education. Additionally, the returns to education vary greatly with educational endowment. Tertiary education has always maintained a high rate of returns at nearly 10 percent, while returns to senior high school education and below have gradually diminished.Originality/valueThe authors believe that the results will not only enrich studies on the returns to education in rural China, but also provide a basis for diagnosing the changes of rural labor market in the early twenty-first century.

Who gets supply contracts and how do they impact suppliers? The case of small chickpea growers in Ethiopia’s Oromia region

Contract farming, a form of vertical coordination between an agribusiness firm and farmers, has considerable potential for integrating smallholders into value chains. However, questions have been asked about its impact on smallholders, particularly the poorest. This study examined these aspects of a contract farming arrangement (CFA) between a chickpea processing firm and a farmers' cooperative union in central Ethiopia. A random sample of 95 growers was drawn from a list of participating farmers. In addition, a representative sample of 114 households was drawn from seven counties where the CFA was active. A subset of non-participating households with characteristics similar to those participating in the CFA was identified as a control group using propensity scores predicted by a logit model. The logit model indicated that the CFA was biased against farmers who were relatively poor, risk averse and who lacked farming skills and experience. However, there was no evidence that participation was influenced by gender, education, farm size or household labour endowments. Univariate comparisons revealed significant differences in key outcomes between participants and households in the control group. A multivariate 'treatment' model estimated to isolate the impact of the CFA found that participation had a substantial positive impact on household cash revenue (USD183/adult equivalent) and net cash income (USD171/adult equivalent) earned from crop production. Participants attributed increases in net income to improved seed, a guaranteed market with a stable price, and higher levels of output. Descriptive analysis of other perceived outcomes suggested that participants also benefitted from improved food security and better access to technology, advice, preferred markets, credit and social networks.

Teacher Perceptions of the Impact of Peer Learning in their Classrooms: Using Social Interdependence Theory as a Model for Data Analysis and Presentation

Peer tutoring is a structured process of co-operative learning, supported by social interdependence theory shown to have cognitive and affective level benefits. During a RCT, this study explores teacher perceptions (n=62) of effects of co-operative learning, including implementation issues, using a mixed methods approach during a 16-week peer tutoring intervention in 58 classes (10 secondary/high schools) in England. Data suggested strengthened peer relationships enhanced student learning. Teacher perceptions remained consistent and are congruent with social interdependence theory and research validating the theory. Implications for research, theory, practice and policy are discussed. Research was supported by Educational Endowment Foundation grant: Spring2012-105.

BUILDing SCHOLARS: enhancing diversity among U.S. biomedical researchers in the Southwest

Background and purposeWith funding from the National Institutes of Health, BUILDing SCHOLARS was established at The University of Texas at El Paso with the goal of implementing, evaluating and sustaining a suite of institutional, faculty and student development interventions in order to train the next generation of biomedical researchers from the U.S. Southwest region, where the need is dire among underserved communities. The focus is on supporting the infrastructure necessary to train and mentor students so they persist on pathways across a range of biomedical research fields. The purpose of this article is to highlight the design and implementation of BUILDing SCHOLARS’ key interventions, which offer a systemic student training model for the U.S. Southwest. In-depth reporting of evaluation results is reserved for other technical publications.Program and key highlightsBUILDing SCHOLARS uses a comprehensive regional approach to undergraduate training through a multi-institution consortium that includes 12 research partners and various pipeline partners across Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Through faculty collaborations and undergraduate research training, the program integrates social and behavioral sciences and biomedical engineering while emphasizing seven transdisciplinary nodes of biomedical research excellence that are common across partner institutions: addiction, cancer, degenerative and chronic diseases, environmental health, health disparities, infectious diseases, and translational biomedicine. Key interventions aim to: (1) improve institutional capacities by expanding undergraduate research training infrastructures; (2) develop an intra- and cross-institutional mentoring-driven “community of practice” to support undergraduate student researchers; (3) broaden the pool of student participants, improve retention, and increase matriculation into competitive graduate programs; and (4) support faculty and postdoctoral personnel by training them in research pedagogy and mentoring techniques and providing them with resources for increasing their research productivity. Student training activities focus on early interventions to maximize retention and on enabling students to overcome common barriers by addressing their educational endowments, science socialization, network development, family expectations, and material resources. Over the long term, BUILDing SCHOLARS will help increase the diversity of the biomedical research workforce in the U.S. by meeting the needs of students from the Southwest region and by serving as a model for other institutions.

REMOVING THE “VEIL OF IGNORANCE”: NONLINEARITIES IN EDUCATION EFFECTS ON GENDER WAGE INEQUALITIES

A large literature studies the mean gender wage gap in developing countries and finds mixed evidence about the role of education policies in closing gender earnings inequalities. We contribute to this literature by exploring two types of nonlinearities in wage earning regressions: (1) nonlinearities on the effects of education on expected earnings along the distribution of education endowments; and (2) heterogeneities on the contributions of education to the gender wage gap at different quantiles of the wage distribution. Our analyses provide new insights on how these nonlinear effects can be used to set up better targeted gender and development policies. (JEL I26, C14)

Commentary: So was it worth it? A commentary on Fricke etal. and Hagen etal. (2017).

Fricke etal. and Hagen etal. (2017) each report on large-scale pragmatic randomised controlled trials delivered in schools or nurseries, investigating language interventions for vulnerable children and showing moderate positive effect sizes. Such research is part of a recent development of 'what works' research in England, and the number of 'what works' trials continues to increase, largely through funding from the Sutton Trust, who are concerned with disadvantaged children, to the Educational Endowment Foundation (EEF). 'What works' research is not firmly accepted by all educationalists, however, results of trials are now available quickly and presented in a manner intended to be accessible to practitioners. This development may facilitate principled decisions on the adoption of interventions by schools, as trials and their outcomes may be interrogated to support decisions on whether the anticipated impact is worth the cost of implementation.

An Optimal Investment Strategy for University Endowment Fund

Automatic educational endowment funding systems suffer from two problems, i.e., lack of historical data and labels. In this paper, we propose a simple but effective investment portfolio model, which helps us to determine which campuses should be invested in, how much money should be distributed, and how long funds should last. Our algorithm first uses the PCA framework to assign each campus a label, and then uses SVMs to learn ranking list of campuses. We further develop a greedy strategy to optimize portfolio. Experiments on the ROC metric indicate the effectiveness of our model.

Education gap between second-generation migrants and natives and the role of intergenerational transmission of education

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyse the role played by parental education endowments vs intergenerational transmission of education in education differences between second-generation immigrants and natives for the French case.Design/methodology/approachFirst, estimates of human capital accumulation functions are performed by using a representative sample of the French population. Second, the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition technique is implemented to underline the specific roles of differences in parental education endowments and of differences in intergenerational transmission in education between origins.FindingsThe econometric estimates of human capital accumulation function parameters underline that the determinants of education level (and their magnitude), differ substantially between natives and migrants. They also underline evidence of heterogeneity in the intergenerational transmission of education among the different origins of migrants in France. The Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition results show that parental education endowments account differences for a significant part of the education gaps among origins. No evidence is found that differences in parental transmissions of education explain these gaps.Originality/valueThe paper focusses on France, a country with a rich history of immigration in the twentieth century. The econometric analysis is based on a rich source of data for France that allows studying intergenerational mobility in education and also distinguishing natives from second-generation migrants based on their geographical origin.

Educational Endowments Governance for Institutions of Higher Education in Malaysia: A Preliminary Study

Educational Endowments Governance for Institutions of Higher Education in Malaysia: A Preliminary Study

Education and Employment Outcomes in Ghana through the Lens of the Capability Approach

Existing literature on education and employment confirms that in Ghana educational qualification largely influences the type of work. Through the lens of the Capability Approach, which sees human development in terms of the expansion of freedoms and opportunities, this paper identifies, for a cross-section of Ghanaians, the array of employment opportunities between and within education endowments. “Between endowments” refers to differentials in opportunities for individuals with different levels of educational qualifications, while “within endowments” considers the differentials for individuals with the same level of education. The source of data is the 2005/06 Ghana Living Standard Survey (GLSS5). Results show that education is not enough to erase inequalities. Multinomial regression analysis demonstrates that functionings differ according to the individual’s context, household and personal conversion factors. This is explained by inequalities in the requirements for a particular job (between educational endowments) and by job accessibility due to personal characteristics (within educational endowments).

An evaluation of the ‘Switch‐on Reading’ literacy catch‐up programme

This paper is based on one of the first completed studies funded by the Educational Endowment Foundation (EEF). EEF was set up in response to repeated demands for clearer evidence on school improvement. The paper presents the results of an intensive 10‐week literacy intervention called Switch‐on Reading. This was trialled in England as part of a government initiative to assist children below Level 4 literacy while at age 10 to catch up with their peers on transfer to secondary school. Switch‐on took place in 19 Nottinghamshire schools, with 314 year 7 pupils individually randomised to treatment in the first or second term of school year 2012/13. This is the largest trial so far conducted of this kind of 10‐week reading intervention. It was delivered on a one‐to‐one basis by trained school staff, mostly teaching assistants. The independent evaluation was based on pre and post administration of the New Group Reading Test, and on observations and interviews in schools. The overall result was an effect size of +0.24, based on the pooled standard deviation of the post‐test score (and the gain score) for both groups, meaning that the programme made a noticeable positive impact. This effect can be envisaged as suggesting that on average a pupil receiving the intervention would make approximately three additional months’ progress over the course of a year compared with similar pupils who did not, at a cost of around £600. The evaluation identified positive results for all groups of pupils (defined by sex, first language, ethnicity, special educational needs, free school meal eligibility and measured attainment at the outset). The trial also illustrates a key role for teaching assistants and shows the feasibility of the EEF research programme.

Accounting for Mexican Income Inequality During the 1990s

The present study measures the extent to which income disparities in Mexico can be attributed to sectoral asymmetries and differences in skill endowments. The results show that close to 40 per cent of per capita household income inequality in Mexico during the 1990s is attributable to incomes derived from formal self-employment; this refers to entrepreneurial activities, an income factor rarely analyzed in the inequality literature. We show that education endowments (skills) are unevenly distributed among the Mexican population, with positive shifts in the market returns to schooling being associated with increases in inequality. Asymmetries in the distribution of education endowments explain around 20 per cent of overall household income disparities in Mexico during the 1990s. Moreover, the results show that the proportion of inequality attributable to education endowments increased during stable periods and reduced during the 1994--1995 economic crisis. This pattern is mostly explained by shifts in returns to schooling rather than changes in the distribution of skills. Applying the same techniques to decompose within-sector income differences, the study show that skill endowments can account for as much as 25 per cent of differences in earnings, but as little as 10 per cent of income dispersion among formal self-employed workers.

Educational attainment and maternity in Spain: not only “when” but also “how”

This paper describes how women with different human capital endowments behave differently with regard to the decision to bear their first child and disentangles the overall effects of education on the timing of the birth of the first child through a set of intervening variables. To do so, a decomposition technique that enables distinction between direct and indirect effects in logistic regressions is deployed. Education drives different fertility behavior patterns and delays fertility through several mechanisms: attachment to the labor market, non-traditional values, and the characteristics of the partner and the partnership. Nevertheless, the ability of the mechanisms explored in this study to explain the link between education and fertility timing is rather limited, and a large part of this relationship remains unexplained. In addition, we find evidence of differences across educational groups in the way women’s decisions to have their first child respond to several explanatory factors, which points at a structural change in the decision taking amongst women with different educational endowments.