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This paper examines the labor market outcomes of two different forms of cross-border higher education degree programs (i.e., full study abroad vs. twinning) between Malaysia and Japan. Specifically, based on a new graduate survey, it examines whether there are differences in the labor market outcomes between the two programs and what other factors have significant effects on the labor market outcomes. The results of regression analysis indicate that there are no significant differences between the two programs in terms of employment immediately after graduation, being in graduate-level positions in current jobs, and in the levels of earnings in current jobs. Instead, among the variables related to education, the degree fields, internship experiences, and university rankings are significant for the first employment. For current work, the results suggest that the post-graduation qualifications such as junior engineers and English and Japanese language skills become important. Based on our findings, considering the labor market outcomes as a purpose of studying abroad, twinning program between two countries could be one of the tools of human capital development.

This paper sheds light on the increasingly diverse forms of cross-border higher education in East Asia, ranging from traditional student mobility (e.g., full-time study abroad) to the mobility of the programs themselves. Specifically, this paper examines the expected outcomes and risks or challenges of cross-border collaborative degree programs by focusing on differences in the level of collaboration and by using two survey datasets on leading East Asian universities and their collaborative degree programs. As for the expected outcomes of such programs, this survey of universities indicates that improving the quality of education is perceived as a more important outcome of collaborative degree programs than it is for traditional forms of simple student mobility. However, this survey of programs confirms the variation in the degree of collaboration among collaborative programs in terms of location, curriculum and degree provision; it also shows that bilateral programs, which require greater collaboration between the partner institutions, tend to perceive promoting intercultural awareness, achieving research excellence and promoting regional collaboration and Asian identity as more important than one-side led programs do. Bilateral programs also see economic benefits in collaborative degree programs, such as meeting the demands of the global economy, when the data samples used for the analysis are limited to programs conducted between institutions from high-income and middle-income countries, thus excluding programs with low-income countries. On the other hand, the risks and challenges of cross-border collaborative degree programs tend to be perceived as less significant by bilateral programs than by one-side led programs. These results point to the importance of the greater involvement of each of the partner institutions in meeting the expectations of the other partner and mitigating any risks or challenges in cross-border degree programs. In particular, it is worth

This paper examines the quality of the policy intent with respect to the school-based management system in Burkina Faso. It discusses the difference between policy intent and policy implementation; focusing on the functionality of school councils and their synergies with decentralization and assessment policies to achieve better learning results. A new policy diagnostic tool, developed and revised by the World Bank and its partners including JICA was adapted to the context of Burkina Faso. This tool is based on international evidence of good practice collected under the System Approach for Better Education Results (SABER) program, relating to the policy domain of School Autonomy and Accountability (SAA). First, for the quality of policy intent, those policies that concentrate on the roles of school councils are assessed as advanced, and as emerging directions on school autonomy through decentralization to communes of operational budget management and teacher deployment, while policies on standardized student assessments are said to be advanced on their frequency of use. Differences among stakeholders in the degree of policy implementation were found using survey data collected in 2013 from various level actors, including rural school directors, school councils, and local administrations. Regarding school councils, called COGES (Comités de Gestion des Etablissements Scolaires), these differences are on whether such councils exist and on how functional they are. The degree of functionality, as measured by community and parental voluntary contributions to schools, is significantly associated with variables relating to implementation of procedures in COGES, such as organizing a general assembly and the Federation of COGES, while controlling for other community contexts. The level of functionality of COGES significantly explains the observed differences in the quality of education services and learning achievements in Burkina Faso. Moreover, the use of student assessment

This paper examines the quality of policy intent and policy implementation in education policies related to school-based management (SBM) in rural Senegal. For this purpose, we adapted the World Bank diagnostic tool for the SBM system known as SABER-SAA (System Approach for Better Education Result for the policy domain of School Autonomy and Accountability), to conduct a survey of various actors in the education system of Senegal. In terms of policy intent, the results of the assessment show that Senegal is making progress on strengthening the participatory roles of school councils in school operations, and on the management of operational budgets at the municipal level. However, the field survey data show that there are differences between policy intent and implementation, and differences among stakeholders in the degree of policy implementation. In terms of the participation of school councils in school activities, we found that when school councils were active in the implementation of procedural policies, such as holding general assemblies, the amount of financial contributions to the school were larger, and there were more council inspired activities. Furthermore, the variables indicating a more active role for school councils also had a positive and statistically significant association with pass rates in the primary graduation exam. The degree of functionality of the school council was also assisted by supporting measures, such as training and monitoring visits. Other factors positively associated with increased pass rates include: a shared vision by school directors and school councils on commune responsibility towards a school, and the use of comparisons of school performance with the performance of other schools as a motivator for making improvements in the subject school. These findings suggest that strengthening the implementation of policy in the area of participatory school councils, as well as improving linkages with sub-national administrations, is im

As globalization and the knowledge economy spreads, the demand for highly skilled workers has increased and developing countries are engaged in cross-border higher education to develop high level human resources for their nations. Using data on a cross-border higher education program between Malaysia and Japan, namely the Higher Education Loan Project (HELP1 and HELP2), this paper explores whether publicly funded cross-border higher education programs have yielded their expected outcomes (i.e., employment immediately after graduation) over the last ten years in the context of the rapidly changing Malaysian economic and higher education landscape. Our findings indicate that the program has met its intended outcomes, that is, the graduates have been absorbed in the industries they intended to work in or have continued with further studies, which are both conducive to Malaysian national development. However, our findings on the rates of graduates staying after completing their degrees imply that factors such as the host country’s immigration policies may influence the decision by graduates on where to work.

Set against the backdrop of increasing economic interdependence in East Asia, the idea of“regional integration” is now being discussed as a long-term political process in the region. As in the field of the international economy, de facto integration and interdependence exist with respect to the internationalization of the higher education system in East Asia. Based on the results of a comprehensive Japan International Cooperation Agency Research Institute (JICA-RI) survey of 300 leading higher education institutions active in cross-border higher education, located in ten Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member Southeast Asian countries and three Northeast Asian countries (China, Japan, and Korea), this paper examines universities’ perceptions of the degree of cross-border activities, the significance of their “expected outcomes,” and their regional preferences for partners. The objective is to envision a direction for a future regional higher education framework in East Asia and to consider the policy implications of the internationalization of higher education in East Asia in the context of regionalization. The findings related to the degree of cross-border activities suggest a current perception that there is more prominent in conventional than in innovative activities, but that innovation will rise considerably in the future. With respect to the significance of “expected outcomes,”academic and political “expected outcome” are perceived to be more significant than economic“expected outcome,” which are nevertheless expected to be more significant in the future. Finally, in terms of their preferred regions of partners, universities in East Asia overall place a high priority on building partnerships within their own region. Yet, among Northeast Asian universities, North America is perceived as the most active partner.

This paper examines institutional governance for a cross-border higher education program, focusing on the effects of introducing a new form of program. The paper analyzes the case of the Higher Education Loan Fund Project between Malaysia and Japan, in which the form of cross-border higher education has evolved from student mobility to program mobility through a twinning arrangement. Although academic staff sent from Japanese universities continued to play important roles and be involved in decision-making, the partner institution in Malaysia began to replace some of them with Malaysian teaching staff, had their initial part of the twinning program accredited as a diploma course, and used this experience to develop a fresh diploma course for engineering. Japanese universities successfully responded to the evolution of the project by adapting the existing curriculum, transferring credits and students, and developing new systems of staff training and quality assurance. By creating a consortium which has gradually become more formalized, the Japanese universities followed common procedures for placement and student support, thus reducing transaction costs. Certain universities have developed new cross-border programs by themselves. A program mobility model of cross-bordering is strengthening the governance and capacity of participating higher education institutions, but the sustainability of the program will depend on the commitment of the institutions and continued financial support by governments.

This paper sheds light on a potential risk of trade-off between access to primary education and the quality of education in underserved areas in the case of Yemen, which still faces challenges in access, equity, and quality in spite of its rapid improvement over the past decade. It will first examine the level of learning achievement in relation to an improvement of enrollments and gender parity in rural schools where girls were more disadvantaged in 2004, when Yemen started the national basic education strategy toward 2015. It will also examine the level of learning achievement in relation to the other supply-side variables, of which quality and quantity are often affected by expansion of access. The data used here are the student- and school-level data collected by the JICA Research Institute at rural schools in Yemen in 2011 and the data from the TIMSS in 2011. The analyses point to a trade-off between improved access and quality of learning. The results indicated that the school-level increase of gender parity in enrollment and the total enrollment growth of boys and girls alike over the past three years are negatively associated with the current students’ math test scores. The estimation results of trade-offs are valid while controlling for basic students and family characteristics, such as parental education and occupation. As anticipated from previous education production function analyses, some policy variables, such as teacher availability and existence of participatory school management committees, change across schools, and they are important for explaining the learning differences in the relatively underserved rural areas of Yemen. These findings underscore the need of revisiting such policy measures in further increasing access while ensuring the quality standards for disadvantaged areas and avoiding widening of the quality difference within the country and ensuring learning for all.

Parental perceptions have been considered important for the primary school enrollment of girls, particularly in countries where female activities are constrained by social norms and values. In Yemen, primary school enrollment steadily improved throughout the 2000s, but the gender gap still remains. We conducted a comprehensive survey of households and schools in rural Yemen, in which fathers and mothers were separately asked about their educational aspirations for girls and their general attitudes toward girls’ education, the marriage age for girls, and their attitudes toward women in the workforce. This paper describes the perceptions of fathers and mothers, and empirically examines their relationship to primary school enrollment for girls aged 6-9 years and 10-14 years, controlling for both demand- and supply-side factors. As a result, we observe a certain degree of variation in paternal and maternal perceptions among households and son preference in both the paternal and maternal aspirations. The regression analyses reveal that both the paternal and the maternal aspirations, and the son preference in their aspirations are strongly related to the enrollment of older girls. Additionally, the analyses show that other paternal perceptions of girls’ education, the desirable marriage age, and women in the workforce are statistically significant for older girls. We also found that paternal perceptions are more highly correlated to the enrollment of both younger and older girls than maternal perceptions, and that the supply-side factors such as the qualification of teachers and the presence of female teachers are also significant to the enrollment of girls.

This paper looks at the issue of the quality of education in Yemen. It uses micro-data from TIMSS and from surveys conducted in underserved rural areas, as well as macro-level policy information from the System Assessment for Better Education Results (SABER) database. The analysis indicates that the availability of teachers and resources at schools, the monitoring and supervision of schools and parental involvement in schooling are important factors for better learning outcomes and avoiding trade-offs between expansion of enrollment and quality of learning. The paper suggests three types of reforms that can be carried out in the short run. First, it is necessary to systematically monitor teachers’ actual deployment and attendance in order to link the information with salary management and incentives. Second, there is a need to refine and scale up the existing implementation and monitoring mechanism for school grants to reward schools and communities that improve access for disadvantaged students and girls, and enhance the quality of learning. Third, there is a need to enhance transparency and accountability of school resources and results by disseminating a simple database that would include trends of basic indicators to monitor and compare progress at the school, district and governorate level.

Despite remarkable progress supported by international commitment to meeting the MDGs, countries such as Yemen still face great challenges in achieving gender parity in education and in reducing in-country disparities. Strengthening community participatory school management is a key area which JICA has prioritized in its programs for reaching marginalized children and for improving access to and quality of education. One instance of this is a technical cooperation project in Yemen called Broadening Regional Initiative for Developing Girls’ Education (BRIDGE) Phase 1 (2005-2008), which piloted a participatory school management model supported by school grants with the objective of eliminating gender disparity in basic education. How successfully has this approach been in such a traditional society? Our analyses of the performance of the project’s pilot schools based on analyses of data collected at three points in time – at the initial year and end year of the project and two years after the project’s end – suggests the following: Interventions in school management that strongly emphasize girls can be effective in rather quickly improving gender parity regardless of the schools’ initial conditions. However, we also observe that the post-project performance of the pilot schools in terms of gender parity is mixed, even though budgets for school grants were allocated by the local government to all pilot schools. We further observe that such variation in performance appears to be significantly correlated to school leaders’ perceptions of gender equality, to community participation, and to the number of female teachers employed. These findings point to the importance of continuous long-term guidance to the schools and monitoring of those which implement school improvement programs. Attention should be paid to key factors that might influence school performance, such as those identified in this paper.