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AbstractThe standard of education a country offers its population is a good indicator of its ability to compete on the global stage. The pedagogical proficiency of the teachers could be used to assess the quality of education. On this premise, this descriptive correlational study explored the relationship between academic achievement and the pedagogical competence of 65 randomly selected preservice teachers. A standardized rating scale was used to gather pertinent data. This study concluded that preservice teachers had exceptional pedagogical competence as rated by their cooperating teachers and professors, irrespective of their gender, discipline, or cooperating school of deployment. Apart from teachers’ personalities and classroom management, all other dimensions of pedagogical competence exhibited significantly positive associations among them. Additionally, the profile characteristics of preservice teachers are not strongly linked with their pedagogical competence. On the other hand, the preservice teachers had extremely excellent academic performance, which varies greatly with specialization and cooperating schools. The preservice teachers’ academic performances did not considerably differ and are not influenced by gender. However, there was a markedly unfavorable link between the preservice teachers’ academic performance and their specialization and cooperating schools. Finally, there was a marginally significant association between the preservice teachers’ academic achievement and their pedagogical competence. In order to further strengthen their pedagogical competence in accordance with ASEAN recommendations for K–12 education, preservice teachers may be required to take additional electives in each specialization.

School heads are agents of change who contribute a major impression on the educational milieu through their information-sharing methods, creating supportive social connections, participating in mentoring programs, and fostering progress. Hence, this study ascertained the interrelation between the public school head's leadership practices and teachers' performance. As correlation research, simple random sampling was used to calculate the sample size for teachers, while total enumeration was used for school heads. A structured questionnaire was developed to gather the necessary information that reinforced the theme of this analysis. Weighted mean was used to ascertain the level of leadership practices of school heads and the level of teacher performance. T-test, F-test, post-hoc test, and Pearson r were employed to establish the degree of association between and among variables. This study concluded that the variation in leadership practices experienced by school heads and teachers is absolutely vital, confirming that their reactions are fundamentally better. Teachers' performance is consistent irrespective of age, educational achievement, or significant contributions. In terms of teaching status and number of years of experience, head teachers have improved teaching efficiency than teachers and master teachers. Teachers with shorter relevant experience showed poorer educational quality relative to those who spent more time in the school system. School heads who have obtained their doctorate degrees get a greater level of leadership practices than the holders of master's degrees. The very productive performance of teachers stays the same, regardless of whether the school heads exhibit a very high degree of authentic leadership.

The standard of education a country offers its population is a good indicator of its ability to compete on the global stage. The pedagogical proficiency of the teachers could be used to assess the quality of education. On this premise, this descriptive correlational study explored the relationship between academic achievement and the pedagogical competence of 65 randomly selected preservice teachers. A standardized rating scale was used to gather pertinent data. This study concluded that preservice teachers had exceptional pedagogical competence as rated by their cooperating teachers and professors, irrespective of their gender, discipline, or cooperating school of deployment. Apart from teachers' personalities and classroom management, all other dimensions of pedagogical competence exhibited significantly positive associations among them. Additionally, the profile characteristics of preservice teachers are not strongly linked with their pedagogical competence. On the other hand, the preservice teachers had extremely excellent academic performance, which varies greatly with specialization and cooperating schools. The preservice teachers' academic performances did not considerably differ and are not influenced by gender. However, there was a markedly unfavorable link between the preservice teachers' academic performance and their specialization and cooperating schools. Finally, there was a marginally significant association between the preservice teachers' academic achievement and their pedagogical competence. In order to further strengthen their pedagogical competence in accordance with ASEAN recommendations for K-12 education, preservice teachers may be required to take additional electives in each specialization.

Climate change factors such as elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) and ozone (O₃) can exert significant impacts on soil microbes and the ecosystem level processes they mediate. However, the underlying mechanisms by which soil microbes respond to these environmental changes remain poorly understood. The prevailing hypothesis, which states that CO₂- or O₃-induced changes in carbon (C) availability dominate microbial responses, is primarily based on results from nitrogen (N)-limiting forests and grasslands. It remains largely unexplored how soil microbes respond to elevated CO₂ and O₃ in N-rich or N-aggrading systems, which severely hinders our ability to predict the long-term soil C dynamics in agroecosystems. Using a long-term field study conducted in a no-till wheat-soybean rotation system with open-top chambers, we showed that elevated CO₂ but not O₃ had a potent influence on soil microbes. Elevated CO₂(1.5×ambient) significantly increased, while O₃ (1.4×ambient) reduced, aboveground (and presumably belowground) plant residue C and N inputs to soil. However, only elevated CO₂ significantly affected soil microbial biomass, activities (namely heterotrophic respiration) and community composition. The enhancement of microbial biomass and activities by elevated CO₂ largely occurred in the third and fourth years of the experiment and coincided with increased soil N availability, likely due to CO₂-stimulation of symbiotic N₂ fixation in soybean. Fungal biomass and the fungi∶bacteria ratio decreased under both ambient and elevated CO₂ by the third year and also coincided with increased soil N availability; but they were significantly higher under elevated than ambient CO₂. These results suggest that more attention should be directed towards assessing the impact of N availability on microbial activities and decomposition in projections of soil organic C balance in N-rich systems under future CO₂ scenarios.

Elevated atmospheric C[O.sub.2] and ozone ([O.sub.3]) may affect productivity of legumes in part by altering symbiotic [N.sub.2] fixation. To investigate this possibility, measurements of plant biomass, N levels and natural [sup.15]N abundance ([delta]sup.15]N) were used to examine the effects of elevated C[O.sub.2] and [O.sub.3] on N acquisition in field-grown peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) using open-top chambers. Seasonal 12-h daily average C[O.sub.2] treatment concentrations were 376, 550, and 730 [micro]mol [mol.sup.-1] Carbon dioxide treatments were applied in reciprocal combinations with seasonal 12-h daily average [O.sub.3] concentrations of 21, 49, and 79 nmol [mol.sup.-1]. At mid-vegetative growth, elevated C[O.sub.2] significantly reduced leaf N concentrations by up to 44%, but not [delta][sup.15]N values. Elevated [O.sub.3] did not significantly affect N concentrations or [delta][sup.15]N values. At harvest, plant N concentrations were similar among treatments except for a 14% reduction in the highest-level C[O.sub.2]-[O.sub.3] treatment. Plant N accumulation varied in proportion with treatment effects on biomass production, which was increased with elevated C[O.sub.2] when averaged over the [O.sub.3] treatments and suppressed by high-level [O.sub.3] at ambient C[O.sub.2]. Elevated C[O.sub.2] reduced plant [delta][sup.15]N values in low- and mid-level [O.sub.3] treatments while mid- and high-level [O.sub.3] increased them at ambient C[O.sub.2]. The changes in [delta][sup.15]N values suggested that [N.sub.2] fixation activity was stimulated with elevated C[O.sub.2] and inhibited by elevated [O.sub.3]. Elevated C[O.sub.2] ameliorated detrimental [O.sub.3] effects to varying extents depending on the concentrations of the two gases. These results indicated that interactions between C[O.sub.2] and [O.sub.3] on plant physiology can alter N acquisition processes, with impacts on peanut productivity likely dependent in part on these changes.