Tertiary Attainment Research Articles

COVID-19 resilience index in European Union countries based on their risk and readiness scale.

Addressing risks and pandemics at a country level is a complex task that requires transdisciplinary approaches. The paper aims to identify groups of the European Union countries characterized by a similar COVID-19 Resilience Index (CRI). Developed in the paper CRI index reflects the countries' COVID-19 risk and their readiness for a crisis situation, including a pandemic. Moreover, the study detects the factors that significantly differentiate the distinguished groups. According to our research, Bulgaria, Hungary, Malta, and Poland have the lowest COVID-19 Resilience Index score, with Croatia, Greece, Czechia, and Slovakia following close. At the same time, Ireland and Scandinavian countries occupy the top of the leader board, followed by Luxemburg. The Kruskal-Wallis test results indicate four COVID-19 risk indicators that significantly differentiate the countries in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Among the significant factors are not only COVID-19-related factors, i.e., the changes in residential human mobility, the stringency of anti-COVID-19 policy, but also strictly environmental factors, namely pollution and material footprint. It indicates that the most critical global environmental issues might be crucial in the phase of a future pandemic. Moreover, we detect eight readiness factors that significantly differentiate the analysed country groups. Among the significant factors are the economic indicators such as GDP per capita and labour markets, the governance indicators such as Rule of Law, Access to Information, Implementation and Adaptability measures, and social indicators such as Tertiary Attainment and Research, Innovation, and Infrastructure.

City Administrative Level and Tertiary Educational Opportunities: Evidence From China’s Higher Education Expansion Policy

In 1999, the Chinese government implemented a higher education enrollment expansion policy to improve education equality. Now, its positive impact on educational equality is contested. This study attempts to identify the link between city administrative level and tertiary attainment in the context of the policy. Our empirical findings indicate that after implementation of the policy, inequality increased. Students from political and economic centers had more opportunities for tertiary education attainment. This policy has a greater impact on disparities in access to undergraduate education for individuals living in different administrative hierarchies than it does on specialist education.

European embeddedness and the founding of Luxembourg’s 21st century research university

ABSTRACT At the heart of Western Europe and culturally embedded in the ‘Greater Region,’ Luxembourg for centuries sent its youth abroad for tertiary education, without its own national university. Evolving provisions of postsecondary education after 1945 followed construction of several teaching and research institutes that did not offer full-fledged tertiary education certification. With global higher education expansion and European developments providing a window of opportunity, the founding of the national flagship University of Luxembourg (uni.lu) in 2003 was a critical juncture, since leading to an extraordinary case of university institutionalization. Traditions were explicitly maintained, but reshaped, in the new university, with student mobility continuing to bolster the national elite’s pan-European networks and internationalization. Reflecting its hyper-diversity and multilingual culture as well as porous national borders, Luxembourg’s investments in higher education capacity-building, via a twenty-first century research university, have been thoroughly European. Today, Luxembourg has the highest proportion of workers with tertiary attainment and of internationally mobile students, testament to its expanded higher education provision and national policy change facilitated by global models and European norms.

The Pedagogical Concept of Student-Centred Learning in the Context of European Higher Education Reforms

The increasing gap between the demand and supply of graduates with high-level qualifications, i.e. tertiary attainment levels, has been a central driver for curricular higher education reforms in Europe. In the last decade, the Bologna Process has established curricular reforms; however, progress toward the implementation of the pedagogical concept of student-centred learning in European higher education has been rather slow. This paper reviews the current educational policy context within which European higher education institutions operate. Societal developments and trends as well as curricular reform efforts to facilitate a paradigm and culture shift from teacher-centred learning to student-centred learning are discussed. The paper further outlines major obstacles from the perspectives of faculty and students that continue to hinder the successful and widespread implementation of a student-centred learning approach in higher education practice.

The relationship between income inequality and tertiary attainment for developing countries: is it a u-shaped relationship

This study explores the effects of tertiary attainment and per capita income on income inequality for 30 developing countries over the period 1990-2008 by three different estimation approaches namely classical estimation of a fixed effects panel data model, quantile panel type regression, and robust panel type regression models. The findings reveal that there is no evidence of the Kuznets hypothesis of inverted U curve dependence of income inequality on income. However, the results of robust panel type regression and quantile regression for the 20th percentile indicate this relationship as U-shaped. According to robust panel type regression, the effect of tertiary attainment on income inequality is significant and U-shaped, as well. Keywords : Income inequality, Kuznets inverted U hypothesis, Quantile regression, Robust regression, tertiary education. JEL Classification : C14, C23, I32

Recent Developments in Selected Education Indicators and their Relation to Europe 2020 Targets

This study looks at the recent development (1998–2009) in the number of years of schooling that a 6-year old can expect to attend until their 30th birthday for the EU-27 countries. All countries have seen an increase in the number of expected years of schooling, which is driven mainly by increased tertiary enrolment rates. At the same time the education gap vis-à-vis the US has been closed. The dispersion of expected length of education among EU countries has also decreased. Thus, by this measure, education among countries has become more equal. In spite of this progress, some countries will find it difficult to meet their national targets for tertiary educational attainments for 30–34 year-olds in 2020. This is largely because the tertiary education participation rates of young males have been falling behind those of females in many countries. Focussing on the tertiary educational attainments of 30–34 year-olds leaves governments with little time to pursue policies with substantial impact. It would be preferable to supplement the educational attainment target for 30–34 year-olds with an enrolment target for 20–24 year-olds.

Overeducation among European University Graduates: a comparative analysis of its incidence and the importance of higher education differentiation

The incidence of overeducation in eight European countries is here assessed by means of multiple indicators. With the exception of Spain, the results reveal that overeducation is a minor risk amongst European tertiary graduates. Yet, the contrast between different indicators reveals the existence of an overeducation of a moderate kind in countries with high rates of tertiary attainment (Norway, Finland and Netherlands). Our results also reveal the importance of higher education differentiation for understanding the risk of overeducation. Graduates from humanistic fields, bachelor courses and vocational colleges are more exposed to overeducation, though their disadvantage varies cross-nationally.

American Malaise? Lagging College Attainment in the United StatesWilliam G. Bowen, Matthew M. Chingos, and Michael S. McPherson, Crossing the Finish Line: Completing College at America’s Public Universities. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009), xxi+398 pp., $27.95;Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz, The Race between Education and Technology. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 488 pp., $39.95.

Time was when the United States led the world in the amount of education its young people received and in the proportion that graduated from college. This was the case throughout most of the twentieth century, up until the final decade. However, the OECD Factbook 2009 (2009) identifies nine countries with higher rates of “tertiary attainment” for individuals in the 25–34 age group, and another four essentially equal to the United States at 39 percent. Some cold comfort might be had from noting that the United States improved on this score by 3.5 percent from 1997 to 2006, but the OECD average growth was more than 8 percent. Even critics of such rankings admit that the proportion of young Americans graduating from college has virtually stagnated since the 1970s. But the situation is worse than that. Demographic stagnation has been accompanied by increasing inequality. College completion has decreased for the lowest half of family incomes and increased for the upper half. In fact, rates of college attendance, graduation, and graduation from the selective institutions that promise the best career opportunities have all increased for the highest income groups but decreased for the lowest. These trends ought to disturb anyone concerned with the global competitiveness of the American workforce or the well being of our polity and society. These problems have scarcely been ignored during the decades in which they were gestating, but only in recent years has growing recognition evolved into

Determinants of Tariff Dependence in Agricultural Protection in Developed Countries: An Empirical Analysis using Panel Data

The agricultural sector can be protected either by tariffs or subsidies. Most developed countries have moved away from tariffs to subsidies, which are supposed to be more economically efficient, but Japan remains extensively reliant on tariffs for agricultural protection. As such, there is a large gap between what is prescribed by the orthodox trade theory, which suggests a combination of tariff elimination and compensation through lump-sum subsidies as the best policy mix for economic welfare, and what is actually pursued by Japan. Despite such a gap, existing literature on the political-economy of agricultural protection has mainly focused on the ‘level' of protection and rarely addresses the ‘choice' of instruments either tariffs or subsidies. Against this background, this article explores the determinants of tariff dependence in agricultural protection through a regression analysis using panel data for 10 OECD countries to identify the reasons why Japan continues to reply on tariffs as a means of agricultural protection. Hypotheses explaining the preference for tariffs over subsidies to be verified are threefold: (i) ‘revenue motive hypothesis' emphasising the budgetary constraints by governments or lower collection costs of tariffs, (ii) ‘incomplete information hypothesis' arguing that taxpayers understate social costs of tariffs and overstate those of subsidies, (iii) ‘collective action hypothesis' focusing on the collective good nature of tariffs that lead to free-riding among interests groups, lower lobby competition and smaller welfare losses. Their validity is verified based on the statistical significance of coefficients in a single equation estimated by the OLS, with the dependent variable being tariff-dependency ratio (share of tariff protection in total agricultural protection). Independent variables include (i) government debt ratio and income tax dependency ratio as proxies for revenue motive hypothesis, (ii) tertiary attainment ratio and newspaper subscription ratio as proxies for incomplete information hypothesis, (iii) voter turnout in parliamentary elections and concentration ratio of dominant agricultural commodities as proxies for collective action hypothesis, and (iv) trade dependency ratio and exchange rates against US dollar as control variables. The regression analysis reveals that the revenue motive and incomplete information hypotheses are validated given that the coefficients of government debt ratio and tertiary attainment ratio are statistically significant with the expected signs. However, the collective action hypothesis is not supported. Trade dependency ratio as a control variable is also statistically significant with the expected sign. A growth accounting analysis of individual countries based on these statistically significant explanatory variables shows that Japan's consistently high tariff dependence is largely explained by increased government debt ratio. This result implies that Japan's salient increase in budget deficit makes it difficult to transform its agricultural protection from consumer-borne tariffs to taxpayer-financed subsidies due to budgetary constraints. Consequently, it will be indispensable to secure stable revenue sources to be devoted to compensatory subsidies for producers without relying on tariff revenues if Japan is to move away from tariff to subsidy protection.JEL Classification: F13, H29, Q17, Q18

Cross-National Variation in Educational Preparation for Adulthood: From Early Adolescence to Young Adulthood

This article presents key indicators of educational and employment success for adolescents and young adults preparing for adulthood in representative OECD countries. Nations are compared on mathematics achievement, educational attainment, literacy, and unemployment, as well as on national expenditures for education circa 1995. Nations with high-performing students on mathematics assessments are found also to have high levels of literacy in their population, and high rates of graduation from secondary school. National rates of tertiary degree attainment, however, appear to be unrelated to national performance on mathematics and literacy assessments in the countries studied. Indicators of educational performance in the countries studied did not track either an indicator of national investment in education or an indicator of success of young adults in the labor market, which may be more related to country economic cycles and labor force characteristics.

The Reproduction of Privilege in Australian Education

This paper examines changes in the dimensions and sources of educational inequality in Australia. Data from a sample of the urban population is used, and divided into three education (rather than birth or age) cohorts in order to assess the effects of educational expansion over time. The results show that there has been some decline in the effect of social background on years of basic schooling and total years of education, and some increase in the effects of ability. However, the impact of social background remains important, while gender differences in qualifications and tertiary attainments are mostly undiminished. This suggests that while basic schooling has become more meritocratic with the expansion of educational opportunities, higher attainments still reflect and perpetuate systematic inequalities within the broader society. For some years now, the dimensions of educational inequality in advanced societies have been well documented, and there has been much discussion and debate about their sources. In part, inequalities have been attributed to variations within education systems which stratify the process of schooling and favour particular sections of the population in their quest for training and credentials. ' Further, access to education has been pinpointed as an important factor which, in the past, was constrained by limited educational provisions. This meant that in many countries participation in higher education, even in higher levels of secondary education, remained very much the prerogative of privilege and wealth well into the twentieth century. In part, too, a number of other factors have contributed to differences in attainments. Gender and race, and home and school environments, have all been identified as important sources of educational inequality, and all have helped to perpetuate systematic inequalities in attainments independently of individual ability or merit.2 The British Journal of Sociology Volume XXXIX Number 3 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.212 on Thu, 09 Jun 2016 06:25:19 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Privilege in Australian education 359 In more recent years, concerted policy efforts have been directed towards redressing imbalances in education systems and to dissolving entrenched privileges and constraints. In the post-war years in particular, various policies have been enacted with a view to lengthening the period of compulsory education, and expanding opportunities for participation in tertiary study. The latter has been achieved by increasing educational provisions, encouraging adult reeducation, and by providing financial assistance to students.3 In short, the aim has been to make education a right rather than a privilege, and to divorce educational outcomes from the constraints of social background. As a result of these efforts, there has been a substantial upgrading of educational attainments over recent decades. Between 1950 and 1965, for example, participation rates in college education more than doubled in countries such as Britain, Canada, the USA and Australia, while participation in tertiary education increased at an even higher rate.4 Such gains lent some credence to meritocratic explanations for educational outcomes. These suggest that the provision of educational opportunities resolves problems of inequality by allowing people to find their own level within the education process, and by enabling them to succeed to the best of their abilities. If true, ability and aspiration should now be the exclusive determinants of educational outcomes. Despite increases in attainments and the optimism of the meritocratic view, most research suggests that efforts to eradicate inequalities in educational opportunity, that is, to detach attainments from the influence of social origins, have not been entirely successful. Class, family wealth and other dimensions of social background are still important determinants of educational outcomes, and account for about half its explained variance.5 Although it is clear that educational inequalities persist, it is not so clear whether their sources have changed in response to the growth of more equitable participation in the education process. In particular, it is unclear to what extent the constraints of social background and class differences may have declined. In the USA, Bowles and Gintis6 suggest that while legislative changes have narrowed the gap in educational attainments, individual achievements still depend as much on social background as they did in the past. In contrast, Hauser and Featherman7 find some evidence of a decline in the influence of social background on the educational attainments of men, but less so for those with poorly educated fathers and those from large families. In Britain, Halsey et al.8 observe that prolonging the period of compulsory education by legislation has indeed enhanced the level of attainments throughout society, but at the expense of creating further inequalities at later stages of the education process. In France, Garnier and RaflalovichS conclude that educational expansion has This content downloaded from 157.55.39.212 on Thu, 09 Jun 2016 06:25:19 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms