Teacher Policy Research Articles

Soft Action Priors: Towards Robust Policy Transfer

Despite success in many challenging problems, reinforcement learning (RL) is still confronted with sample inefficiency, which can be mitigated by introducing prior knowledge to agents. However, many transfer techniques in reinforcement learning make the limiting assumption that the teacher is an expert. In this paper, we use the action prior from the Reinforcement Learning as Inference framework - that is, a distribution over actions at each state which resembles a teacher policy, rather than a Bayesian prior - to recover state-of-the-art policy distillation techniques. Then, we propose a class of adaptive methods that can robustly exploit action priors by combining reward shaping and auxiliary regularization losses. In contrast to prior work, we develop algorithms for leveraging suboptimal action priors that may nevertheless impart valuable knowledge - which we call soft action priors. The proposed algorithms adapt by adjusting the strength of teacher feedback according to an estimate of the teacher's usefulness in each state. We perform tabular experiments, which show that the proposed methods achieve state-of-the-art performance, surpassing it when learning from suboptimal priors. Finally, we demonstrate the robustness of the adaptive algorithms in continuous action deep RL problems, in which adaptive algorithms considerably improved stability when compared to existing policy distillation methods.

Econometric Modelling of CGPA and its Associated Factors: A Study of Undergraduate Students of Riphah International University Malakand Campus

This study is conducted to model the CGPA and its associated factors of undergraduate students of Riphah International University Malakand Campus Chakdara Dir lower, Pakistan. The stratified random sampling method is used to identify the students from population. The academic departments are considered as strata. One hundred and eight undergraduate students are selected for taking information from the University. Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) Model is used for modelling the CGPA and its associated factors. The MLR model shows that SSC obtained marks, parents’ education, parents’ support and attention in classes is significantly related with obtained CGPA of the students. In terms of policy recommendations, the results of this study present several policies for teachers, parents and administration. Both teachers and administration should focus on attention of students in class. Teachers should prepare interesting and informative lecture that students remain attentive in class. While administration should ensure standard class rooms consist of necessary facilities. Parents should support their children morally, financially and every aspect of life. Teacher and University administration should focus on those students who have illiterate parents. They should play role to guide the students more as their parents is illiterate. Finally, parents should ensure high marks of their children in previous classes that they can perform well in university. This study can be extended to other universities with large sample sizes. Other factors like teacher, environment and administration role can be consider for future study.

“The spirit is willing, but the content is weak?” Enacting the mother tongue policy in teaching information and communication technology to preschoolers in Zimbabwe

This mini-ethnographic case study examined the enactment of the mother tongue (MT) medium of instruction policy in teaching information and communication technology (ICT) to preschoolers or early childhood development (ECD) learners in a Zimbabwean school. The study employed an eclectic cognitive sense-making, ethnography of language policy and planning (ELPP), and technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge (TPACK) framework to look into practices of one preschool teacher, Mrs K, in her quest to enact the mother tongue policy. Despite her 26 years of experience in teaching preschoolers, Mrs K had not received adequate training on teaching ICT, a new subject in the ECD curriculum. While at first glance, she appeared to be abiding by the policy, some of her lessons proved to be teacher-dominated, and the classroom dialogue formulaic thus undermining the all-pervading learner-centred pedagogy on which the new curriculum edifice was premised. The paper thus explores the complex interplay of knowledge of content, technology and pedagogy; experience; cognitive and other contextual factors in impacting teacher sense-making and enactment of the mother tongue policy in teaching ICT to pre-school learners. One major factor which appeared to be influencing teacher understanding of policy was lack of ICT content knowledge and knowledge of how to teach ICT using both English and MT. The policy reformers seemingly rushed to implement the curriculum without capacitating teachers on how to use the mother tongue to teach ICT at ECD level. The study thus proposes strategies for teacher professional development in ICT, particularly for resource-constrained environments.

Teaching English in the Muslim World against the Backdrop of 9/11 and Resurgent Nationalism: A Case Study of Bangladeshi ELT

AbstractThis article examines English language teaching (ELT) policy, textbooks, and pedagogy in the neo‐nationalist era that followed 9/11 in Muslim‐majority Bangladesh. Informed by the Douglas Fir Group's transdisciplinary framework of second language learning, the examination substantiates the ideologies of economization, de‐Islamization and awamization, which coalesce into the overarching ideology of secularization of ELT as a response to the global war on terror and the rise of neo‐nationalism in South Asia. This secular response to forces and developments in global, regional, and local contexts marks the distinctiveness of Bangladeshi ELT compared with other Muslim societies, which have sought to develop students' awareness of religious and cultural values while teaching English. The secularization of ELT can be explained by the rise of Hindutva nationalism in India and the latter's influence on the ruling Bangladesh Awami League government which has been in power for over 14 years. The article attests to the complex, multilayered ELT ideology shaped by local, regional, and global forces and interests, suggesting the formation of a national/social imaginary that seeks alliance with secular Muslims and non‐Muslim communities at home and in the region and excludes practicing Muslims in both contexts.

Ideology and policy: exploring barriers to translanguaging between Chinese teachers and learners in a UK university

ABSTRACT Over the past few decades, there has been a sharp increase in the number of international students enrolling in postgraduate courses at UK universities, with students from China making up the single largest national group. At the same time, there has been a gradual increase in Chinese teachers and faculty members, as these same students continue their studies and build a life in UK academia. Ideally, this demographic shift should offer the opportunity for a flourishing multilingual and translingual academic space in UK universities. However, this is often not the case, with English remaining the default and often only option in teacher/student interactions, regardless of the linguistic and cultural background of the interlocutors. In this study, we explore the barriers to translanguaging practices between Chinese students and their Chinese dissertation supervisor. Through observation of supervisory sessions and interviews with students, we found considerable resistance to translanguaging practices involving the use of shared first language whilst in the UK learning environment. This resistance was seen to be driven by native-speakerist and monolinguistic ideologies, lack of institutional language policy, and actions and attitudes of individual students and teachers.

Theory, policy, and practice: bridging the gap between teacher training and classroom practice in language of instruction in Zambia

This participatory action research project conducted through the USAID-funded Transforming Teacher Education activity examined how two pre-service teacher education programs in Zambia prepared teachers for primary reading instruction. College and university lecturers and in-service primary grade teachers participated in focus groups and interviews. We identified gaps between training and practice within the framework of Zambia’s language of instruction policy. We find that pre-service teacher preparation was generally theoretical and not practical. Opportunities for practice were limited, leading to teachers lacking required competencies and using outdated approaches in schools. We suggest strategies to improve the alignment of pre-service teacher education and classroom instruction.

A Study on Examining Autonomy Provision in Higher Education

Autonomy is the backbone of higher education in India. It encourages the colleges to innovate practices and achievement of excellence. Institutional autonomy denotes the power and capabilities of educational institutes to set their policies for teaching and learning, research, admission procedure, fee structure, evaluation procedure, and implementation. The college should practice autonomy at the grassroots level to address the need of the hour. An attempt has been made to analyze the history of college autonomy from ancient India totodays’UGC’srevised guidelines. Major recommendations of committees and commissions, their objectives, their implementation, drawbacks, and reasons have been discussed.

The Language Policy of Learning English as Support to the Internationalization Management of the Autonomous University of Baja California [Mexico

Objective: The objective of this work is to provide the management actions of internationalization and teaching of the English language carried out by Universidad Autónoma de Baja California (UABC). In the first place, concepts of soft skills (softskills), linguistic, digital, socio-emotional and environmental are described that the student learns in an interdisciplinary way when learning a foreign language and must have associations in the disciplinary field and its relationship with the language policy of English teaching. Secondly, the results of the strategies used by the UABC to promote student exchange are analyzed. Theoretical Framework: The theories that support this study are the language policy by Cooper (1997) and Arnoux & Bein (2015) related to the way English is learned at the UABC and how the internationalization policy makes you participate in it. For this reason, the results of the strategies used by the UABC to promote student exchange at the UABC are analyzed. Methodology: This study focuses on the quantitative-descriptive methodology using a 15-item survey addressed to 100 students to collect information on the improvement of English during the student exchange. The results were plotted in an .xlsx matrix; the instrument that was validated under the calculation and interpretation of Cronbach's Alpha (1951). That is, through the variance of the items used in MS Excel with the statistical package SPSS (22). Results and conclusions: An explicit language policy proposal is presented in the short term from an institutional perspective of the UABC, which will have an impact on having highly qualified graduates towards a successful labor insertion. Research implications: The main contribution of this study is to make known the importance of the role of learning the English language during university studies and the benefits that the student brings when participating in the student exchange in English-speaking countries. Originality/value: This research contributes significantly to the scientific knowledge of student exchange management and, consequently, the impact of learning English at the University so that graduates have direct access to a secure job.

Knowledge Mapping of the Rural Teacher Development Policy in China: A Bibliometric Analysis on Web of Science

The rural teacher development policy plays a key role in cultivating high-quality and sufficient rural teachers in China. This study aims to apply a bibliometric analysis to explore the rural teacher development policy in China’s current education system. The advanced retrieval function of Web of Science (WoS) is used for the literature data, the core collection of Web of Science is selected for the database, and the time span of literature retrieval is consistent with the selected literature. We apply Citespace to analyze the spatial dimension, research paradigm and research method, research theme, research hotspots and co-occurrence of keywords, the evolution process of research hotspots and content of rural teacher development policy in China. It is found that with the deepening of the reform and development of rural elementary education, scholars not only pay attention to the exploration of the deep mechanism of rural teacher policy, but also to data-oriented diversified empirical research.

Fifty years on – and still no resolution: Deaf education, ideology, policy and the cost of resistance

This article proposes and develops a model of teacher resistance based on interviews with eleven teachers employed in a school for the deaf that operated an oral teaching policy up to 1979. It focuses on the relationship between the reified structures in deaf education and individual agency. Teachers had to negotiate tensions between how they were instructed to teach and what they felt was best for the students in terms of language, cultural identity and community membership. Costs of collusion and resistance, and the pertinence of these issues in the context of current discourse around speaking and listening are discussed.

Economic, energetic and environmental analysis of the utilization of swine manure in Brazil: Opportunities and challenges

Faced with the worsening of climate issues, nations are directing efforts to build renewable energy matrices. Specifically with regard to biomass, it can contribute to the creation and strengthening of green competitive advantages in terms of cost for agricultural units. Strictly, swine biomass, considered to have a high polluting load, can contribute to achieving the aforementioned benefits. Therefore, the objective of this article is to analyze the potential economic, environmental and energy contribution of this waste, whether in breeding units, as well as in the Brazilian energy matrix, both aiming to guide investments in the sector and also to guide the elaboration of public policies for the valorization of externalities ecosystemic of this waste, with emphasis on the bioelectricity, biofertilizers and biomethane market. The methodology used was the analysis of the financial viability of breeding units from 100 to 500 swines from 25 kg to 100 kg, with 252 days of operation, 10 h a day, with the use of canvas biodigestor and motor generator with efficiency between 25% up to 38% for electricity price ranges from USD 35.35/MWh to USD 155.35/MWh, sale of carbon credit, simple superphosphate and potassium chloride. Taxes on the sale of electricity and fertilizers at 34%, with a minimum attractive rate of 12% per annum. The results indicate viability for the entire range of numbers of swine, with the sale of fertilizers and electricity and electricity at a price of USD 35.35/MWh. For the exclusive sale of electricity, for efficiency of the thermoelectric motor between 25% and 38%, there is economic and financial viability beginning at 31% for production units of 100 swine with a price of USD 125.35/MWh. This business is viable with at least 200 swine through the replacement of diesel with 10% generated biogas. It can be concluded that there is a need to reformulate the incentive policy in Brazil, through the implementation of feed in tariffs; price the MWh, in the regulated market, based on its environmental externalities; extension of the free market hiring period; the development of teaching policies with farmers about the importance of reusing waste, aiming at replacing synthetic fertilizer with biofertilizer; convergence between the Union and Federative Units on incentive policies, with emphasis on the standardization of biomethane and the creation of captive markets, which provide predictability to agricultural investors, the industries that manufacture biomethane engines and expansion of the gas pipeline network in the country.

“Are You Saying That We’re Racist?”: Comparing Normative, Political, and Technical Dimensions of Instructional and Disciplinary Policies

Background: In recent years, school districts have experienced a complex policy environment with myriad reforms aimed at addressing longstanding and historically entrenched disparities in opportunities and outcomes between racially minoritized students and White students. One such reform is standards-based accountability, with its emphasis on documenting and addressing racial disparities in testing outcomes. Recently, educators and lawmakers have sought to address persistent racial disproportionality in disciplinary actions. New behavioral policies may be seen as a response to national attention and outrage regarding the “school-to-prison pipeline,” which indicates that school discipline practices contribute to the over-representation of Black men in the criminal justice system. In recent years, local leaders have been tasked with implementing new disciplinary reforms alongside their ongoing efforts at instructional improvement. Purpose: As districts face an increasingly complex policy environment and constrained resources, researchers must understand how district leaders make sense of and manage the varied policies they are tasked with implementing. This study contributes to the knowledge base on K–12 policy implementation by examining how school district leaders manage multiple policies—particularly when some new practices engage beliefs around racial discrimination or structural racism. We contribute to the gap in the literature by asking: What differences emerged in the early implementation processes of an instructional policy and a discipline policy in the Elmwood school district, and what might explain those differences? Research Design: To answer this question, we employ a comparative, embedded case study design and examine extensive qualitative data from a single school district. Oakes’s (1992) framework of technical, normative, and political dimensions of policy change guided the analysis and was applied to rich interview data. Conclusions: Overall, our findings highlight significant differences in how Elmwood leadership implemented the two policies. Our study indicates that though both instructional and disciplinary reforms purport to address racial outcome gaps, district leaders may view discipline in a racialized way that they do not view instructional policy. The perceived racialized nature of discipline policy may significantly influence implementation practices. Ultimately, the data suggests that racialized normative beliefs and values, along with political and technical investments, greatly influence the implementation process and raise larger questions about the role of racism in education reform.

Teachers as change agents in the implementation of English-medium instruction policy in Vietnam

AbstractNotwithstanding a considerable amount of literature published on issues related to English as a medium of instruction (EMI) such as stakeholders’ perceptions of EMI benefits and challenges, the impact of EMI on students’ language and academic achievement, and classroom language practices, very few studies have investigated teacher agency in the implementation of EMI policy at the micro level. It is argued that teachers play a critical role in educational change (Fullan 2007). Teachers are considered as primary policymakers who can exercise their agency to implement and respond to national language policy changes which lack clear planning to suit their grassroots level context, instead of being viewed as passive policy recipients in conventional language policy and planning. This echoes a call for more research on teacher agency in different EMI contexts. Drawing on Fullan’s (1993) concept of change agentry, this study seeks to bridge this gap by exploring to what extent content lecturers manifest their capacity to become change agents in response to the change from Vietnamese to English as a medium of instruction in Vietnamese higher education. Research data were based on interviews with fifteen content lecturers and five classroom observations. The findings revealed the vision and agentive actions of local or grassroots level content lecturers in EMI education as active actors who did not seem to passively comply with top-down policies (García and Menken 2010). Instead, they flexibly reinterpreted or reframed them to benefit their students. The study is concluded with implications for teacher agency in the EMI context.RésuméMalgré une quantité considérable de littérature publiée sur les questions liées à l’anglais moyen d’instruction (EMI) telles que les perceptions des parties prenantes des avantages et des défis de l’EMI, l’impact de l’EMI sur la langue et la réussite scolaire des élèves et les pratiques linguistiques en classe, très peu d’études ont étudié l’agence (capacité d’agir) des enseignants dans la mise en œuvre de la politique EMI au niveau micro. On soutient que les enseignants jouent un rôle essentiel dans le changement éducatif (Fullan 2007). Les enseignants sont considérés comme les principaux décideurs politiques qui peuvent exercer leur agence pour mettre en œuvre et répondre aux changements de politique linguistique nationale, lorsque celle-ci manque de planification claire, et peuvent s’adapter à leur contexte de base, au lieu d’être considérés comme des bénéficiaires passifs de décisions prises dans la politique et la planification linguistiques conventionnelles. Cela fait écho à un appel à davantage de recherches sur le libre arbitre des enseignants dans différents contextes EMI. S’appuyant sur le concept d’agent de changement de Fullan (1993), notre étude cherche à combler cette lacune en explorant dans quelle mesure les chargés de cours manifestent leur capacité à devenir des agents de changement en réponse au passage du vietnamien à l’anglais comme langue d’enseignement dans l’enseignement supérieur vietnamien. Les données de recherche sont basées sur des entretiens avec 15 chargés de cours et cinq observations en classe. Les résultats ont révélé la vision et les actions agentives des enseignants de contenu locaux ou de base dans l’enseignement de l’EMI en tant qu’acteurs actifs qui ne semblaient pas se conformer passivement aux politiques qui leur sont imparties (García et Menken 2010). Au lieu de cela, ils ont réinterprété ou recadré ces politiques avec souplesse au profit de leurs élèves. L’étude se conclut avec des implications pour l’agentivité des enseignants dans le contexte de l’EMI.

العلاقة بين بعض العوامل المؤثرة في التدريس عن بعد وبعض المتغيرات الديموغرافية لدى أعضاء هيئة التدريس بجامعة الكويت خلال جائحة كوفيد-19

Objectives: This study identified barriers associated with faculty members' engagement in remote teaching, and indicated the impact of some demographic variables on the classification of barriers, namely, personal, attitudinal, and contextual factors. Method: A descriptive approach was used for collecting and analyzing data. The questionnaire comprised two main sections: (1) the demographic characteristics and (2) factors that are categorized into three main categories: personal barriers, attitudinal factors and contextual factors. Data and Study Sample questionnaire was distributed to 1800 faculty members, and the response rate was 17% for a total of 309 respondents. Results: The results indicated that there were 28 significant barriers facing faculty members who teach remotely. Among the top two obstacles were ``cheating and plagiarism among students in remote teaching'' and the ``lack of laws and regulations toward remote teaching''. The results also revealed that female faculty members were less anxious toward remote teaching than were male faculty members. In addition, those who taught at humanities colleges were more anxious regarding remote teaching than were those who taught at science colleges. Furthermore, the more experience with teaching that faculty members have, the more resistant they are to virtual teaching. One implication of this study is that the traditional evaluation methods cannot simply be applied to remote teaching. Conclusion: Finally, this study recommends that policy makers should take the study results into consideration when developing remote teaching policies, especially in developing countries.

Perspectives of School Managers and Teachers on the Implementation of the Eight-Hour Policy in Selected Schools of Ndola, Zambia

The standard working hours for civil service workers as stipulated by the International Labor Organization (ILO) in most countries is 8 hours. The eight hour work day policy has been enacted in the Labour Laws of Zambia as a guide for employers and employees. Recently, teachers were also mandated to follow this policy as they are part of the public service. However, this policy has been criticized by some teacher unions and the teachers themselves. The Zambia National Union of Teachers (ZNUT) called on the government to implement the eight hour policy for teachers to promote effective teaching. On the other hand, the National Union of Public and Private Educators (NUPPEZ) executive president said that the eight hour policy in its current form was retrogressive to teachers. He further urged the Ministry of General Education to seriously engage the teacher unions to help look into the effective handling of the policy by both administrators and teachers alike. Therefore, this clearly shows that the eight hour policy has been received with mixed feelings by the teaching fraternity. A sample of 40 participants drawn from three public primary schools and three public secondary schools was purposively selected and interviewed. The sample comprised teachers and head teachers. The study was mainly qualitative in nature and used a descriptive design. Thematic analysis was used to analyse data. The study revealed that of the six schools that were sampled, only two schools strongly supported the introduction of the eight-hour policy. Two schools were against the policy while the other two schools expressed mixed feelings. Generally, a large number of teachers felt that the policy was inimical to the interests of teachers. The study recommended inter alia that the Ministry of Education should improve infrastructure in schools such as staffrooms where teachers can prepare their work and relax in a conducive environment for eight hours.

Desire and Marketizing English Version of Education as a Commodity in the Linguistic Market in Bangladesh

In recent years, the globalization of English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) policy has grown exponentially, driven by socio-economic, political, cultural, and educational desires and forces. Despite having a well-established elite English-medium education in Bangladesh, EMI-based, a new type of education system has emerged recently at primary and secondary levels called English-version (EV) education. This paper investigates parents' desires to choose EV schools for their children and how those desires contribute to marketizing EV schools as a new and popular commodity in the education market of Bangladesh. Data were collected using open-ended questionnaires from 120 parents of primary school children studying at five EV schools. Moreover, further qualitative data was collected by conducting three follow-up focus group discussions (FGDs) with 14 parents and three key informant interviews (KIIs) with three EV school principals. Findings show that parents believe in the material value and promises of English as a linguistic capital that has implanted multiple desires in them for their children. They aspire for their children in EV to benefit from their improved English skills in the future at a reasonable cost while continuing to uphold Bangladeshi culture and values. In other words, the exponential market of EVs lies in its affordable cost and future benefits, in tandem with an informed distance from the culture associated with the English language.

State-Level Efforts to Reform Elementary Science Education

This comparative case study explores how 18 state education agencies (SEAs) support school districts in advancing standards-based elementary science reform. We identify how SEAs understand their work in advancing elementary science reform and describe how SEAs sought to engage districts in bridging from standards to classroom practice. Based on our analysis, we argue that the school subject is a critical explanatory variable in understanding SEA efforts to support standards implementation and SEAs lean on a resource-based approach for instructional policy implementation. This study contributes to the growing research base on the role of state policy in supporting standards implementation.

A Policy Reform Framework for Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education in the Philippines

The current Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education [MTB-MLE] policy in the Philippines is beset with numerous issues, and this adversely affects the quality of basic education provided across regions. To address this, this policy paper suggests reviewing the current MTB-MLE policy through a more systematic policy reform mechanism that is participatory. This way, all concerned stakeholders in the Filipino education community contribute to the growth of the basic education instruction in the country by ensuring proper implementation of a mother tongue-based instruction policy. Anchored on the Rational Choice Theory (Becker, 1976), which believes on the following assumptions: individualism, optimality, structures, self-regarding interests, and rationality, this policy paper suggests a framework that the Department of Education can utilize in reviewing the existing policy and creating feasible decisions to improve the instruction in basic education. The proposal also drew inspiration from how the Bilingual Education Act of the United States of America became a promising legislation that has emphasized the importance of multicultural and multilingual classrooms in the country.

A Transfer Learning Approach for UAV Path Design With Connectivity Outage Constraint

The connectivity-aware path design is crucial in the effective deployment of autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Recently, reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms have become the popular approach to solving this type of complex problem, but RL algorithms suffer slow convergence. In this article, we propose a transfer learning (TL) approach, where we use a teacher policy previously trained in an old domain to boost the path learning of the agent in the new domain. As the exploration processes and the training continue, the agent refines the path design in the new domain based on the subsequent interactions with the environment. We evaluate our approach considering an old domain at sub-6 GHz and a new domain at millimeter-wave (mmWave). The teacher path policy, previously trained at the sub-6 GHz path, is the solution to a connectivity-aware path problem that we formulate as a constrained Markov decision process (CMDP). We employ a Lyapunov-based model-free deep <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$Q$ </tex-math></inline-formula> -network (DQN) to solve the path design at sub-6 GHz that guarantees connectivity constraint satisfaction. We empirically demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach for different urban environment scenarios. The results demonstrate that our proposed approach is capable of reducing the training time considerably at mmWave.

COVID-19 Prevention Strategies for Victoria Students within Educational Facilities: An AI-Based Modelling Study

Educational institutions play a significant role in the community spread of SARS-CoV-2 in Victoria. Despite a series of social restrictions and preventive measures in educational institutions implemented by the Victorian Government, confirmed cases among people under 20 years of age accounted for more than a quarter of the total infections in the state. In this study, we investigated the risk factors associated with COVID-19 infection within Victoria educational institutions using an incremental deep learning recurrent neural network-gated recurrent unit (RNN-GRU) model. The RNN-GRU model simulation was built based on three risk dimensions: (1) school-related risk factors, (2) student-related community risk factors, and (3) general population risk factors. Our data analysis showed that COVID-19 infection cases among people aged 10-19 years were higher than those aged 0-9 years in the Victorian region in 2020-2022. Within the three dimensions, a significant association was identified between school-initiated contact tracing (0.6110), vaccination policy for students and teachers (0.6100), testing policy (0.6109), and face covering (0.6071) and prevention of COVID-19 infection in educational settings. Furthermore, the study showed that different risk factors have varying degrees of effectiveness in preventing COVID-19 infection for the 0-9 and 10-19 age groups, such as state travel control (0.2743 vs. 0.3390), international travel control (0.2757 vs. 0.3357) and school closure (0.2738 vs. 0.3323), etc. More preventive support is suggested for the younger generation, especially for the 10-19 age group.