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espanolLa incorporacion de la heterogeneidad del estudiante en el analisis, las diferencias en la calidad de la educacion y en la probabilidad de repitencia, tipicas en los paises en desarrollo, marca la diferencia entre una inversion en educacion atractiva y otra inconveniente. La metodologia asocia la calidad educacional y las tasas de repitencia con los retornos a la educacion. En particular, parece evidente que menos educacion secundaria, en el caso de Uruguay, es una inversion inconveniente para los estudiantes con desventajas, aun no teniendo en cuenta la posibilidad de que dichos alumnos no puedan afrontar los costos de oportunidad, hecho que probablemente tambien explica la fuerte desercion de este tipo de estudiantes en muchos paises en desarrollo. EnglishThis paper shows that when student heterogeneity is introduced in the analysis, differences in the quality of education and in the probability of repetition, typical in developing countries, mark the contrast between an attractive and an inconvenient investment in education. The methodology associates educational quality and repetition rates with educational returns. In particular, it makes apparent that lower secondary education, in the case of Uruguay, is an inconvenient investment for disadvantaged students, even disregarding the possibility of such students not being able to afford the opportunity costs, this fact probably also explains the heavy dropout rates of this student type in many developing countries.

•L’auteur suggère que le modèle canari est un très bon modèle pour comprendre certaines des bases phylogénétiques des cerveaux ‘musiciens’ chez les oiseaux et chez les humains. Il se base sur la découverte de phrases ‘sexy’ dans les répertoires vocaux de mâles canaris (Vallet 1998 HAL RISC CNRS H 0257-1 & H 0257-2) et sur les mécanismes intimes de la production vocale de ces phrases (Suthers, Vallet & Kreutzer, JEB 2012) pour insister ici sur les apports d’une approche éthologique ‘proximale’ des communications intersexuelles basée sur l’étude des réponses différentielles des femelles canaris en relation étroite avec la mise en évidence de ‘talents’ spécifiques cérébraux et périphériques gauches et droits chez le mâle. En conséquence, cet article peut s’apparenter à un « troisième volet » de l’Habilitation à Diriger des recherches tenant compte des réflexions de l’auteur basées sur l’évolution des connaissances dans les domaines éthologique et neurobiologique jusqu’à 2016.•Différents chercheurs ont retrouvé chez les humains certains des talents fortement latéralisés observés chez les oiseaux chanteurs (Lemarquis 2013). D’autre part, le phénomène appelé « Two voice » (diphonie) chez les oiseaux, retrouvé chez des ethnies humaines est désormais parfaitement démontré chez les canaris domestiques et l’utilisation de « mini-breaths » (mini inspirations entre deux syllabes complexes impliquant la musculature abdominale) est retrouvée à des tempos très rapides, deux témoignages de virtuosités hors pair chez certains individus de cette souche. •Ce qui importe, depuis le début de ces travaux, est de montrer que ces virtuosités, surtout dans les domaines fréquentiel et temporel, ont un sens pour les récepteurs (dans ce cas les femelles) et sont au service d’une communication fondamentale entre individus. Les ‘dialogues’ interhémisphériques sont très impliqués. Les travaux menés récemment et publiés sur ce thème (surtout de 2010 à 2015) sont présentés. Certains démontrent que ces phrases sont très utiles pour comprendre, notamment, l’expression différentielle de certains gènes au sein du système nerveux central du récepteur. D’autre part, certaines observations récentes de neurologues et neuropsychologues sont présentées. Elles nous renseignent sur des bases neuronales qui pourraient permettre une comparaison avec celles des oiseaux chanteurs.•Comme le soulignent Earp & Maney (2012), le chant des oiseaux et la musique produite par les humains génèrent des réponses chez le receveur dans des régions cérébrales interconnectées impliquées au premier chef dans les régulations des émotions. Ces régions sont certainement sur des circuits très anciens, d’un point de vue phylogénétique. Chez les oiseaux chanteurs, ces régulations émotionnelles sont en partie au service de la reproduction, a minima au service de la séduction.

•L’auteur suggère que le modèle canari est un très bon modèle pour comprendre certaines des bases phylogénétiques des cerveaux ‘musiciens’ chez les oiseaux et chez les humains. Il se base sur la découverte de phrases ‘sexy’ dans les répertoires vocaux de mâles canaris (Vallet 1998 HAL RISC CNRS H 0257-1 & H 0257-2) et sur les mécanismes intimes de la production vocale de ces phrases (Suthers, Vallet & Kreutzer, JEB 2012) pour insister ici sur les apports d’une approche éthologique ‘proximale’ des communications intersexuelles basée sur l’étude des réponses différentielles des femelles canaris en relation étroite avec la mise en évidence de ‘talents’ spécifiques cérébraux et périphériques gauches et droits chez le mâle. En conséquence, cet article peut s’apparenter à un « troisième volet » de l’Habilitation à Diriger des recherches tenant compte des réflexions de l’auteur basées sur l’évolution des connaissances dans les domaines éthologique et neurobiologique jusqu’à 2016.•Différents chercheurs ont retrouvé chez les humains certains des talents fortement latéralisés observés chez les oiseaux chanteurs (Lemarquis 2013). D’autre part, le phénomène appelé « Two voice » (diphonie) chez les oiseaux, retrouvé chez des ethnies humaines est désormais parfaitement démontré chez les canaris domestiques et l’utilisation de « mini-breaths » (mini inspirations entre deux syllabes complexes impliquant la musculature abdominale) est retrouvée à des tempos très rapides, deux témoignages de virtuosités hors pair chez certains individus de cette souche. •Ce qui importe, depuis le début de ces travaux, est de montrer que ces virtuosités, surtout dans les domaines fréquentiel et temporel, ont un sens pour les récepteurs (dans ce cas les femelles) et sont au service d’une communication fondamentale entre individus. Les ‘dialogues’ interhémisphériques sont très impliqués. Les travaux menés récemment et publiés sur ce thème (surtout de 2010 à 2015) sont présentés. Certains démontrent que ces phrases sont très utiles pour comprendre, notamment, l’expression différentielle de certains gènes au sein du système nerveux central du récepteur. D’autre part, certaines observations récentes de neurologues et neuropsychologues sont présentées. Elles nous renseignent sur des bases neuronales qui pourraient permettre une comparaison avec celles des oiseaux chanteurs.•Comme le soulignent Earp & Maney (2012), le chant des oiseaux et la musique produite par les humains génèrent des réponses chez le receveur dans des régions cérébrales interconnectées impliquées au premier chef dans les régulations des émotions. Ces régions sont certainement sur des circuits très anciens, d’un point de vue phylogénétique. Chez les oiseaux chanteurs, ces régulations émotionnelles sont en partie au service de la reproduction, a minima au service de la séduction.

This paper seeks to find an empirical explanation of Vietnam's outstanding performance on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2012. Only a few developing countries participate in the assessment. Those who do, with the unique exception of Vietnam, are typically clustered at the lower end of the range of the Programme for International student Assessment scores. The paper compares Vietnam's performance with that of a set of seven developing countries from the 2012 assessment's data set, using a cut-off per capita GDP (in 2010 purchasing power parity dollars) of $10,000. The seven developing countries' average performance lags Vietnam's by more than 100 points. The "Vietnam effect" is difficult to unscramble, but the paper is able to explain about half of the gap between Vietnam and the seven countries. The analysis reveals that Vietnamese students may be approaching their studies with higher diligence and discipline, their parents may have higher expectations, and the parents may be following up with teachers regarding those expectations. The teachers themselves may be working in a more disciplined environment, with tabs being kept on their own performance as teachers. Vietnam may also be benefiting from investments in pre-school education and in school infrastructure that are disproportionately higher when compared with Vietnam's per capita income level.

Evidence on the impacts of a large-scale expansion in pre-primary education is limited and mostly circumscribed to high- and middle-income nations. This study estimates the effects of such an expansion on progression in primary school in rural communities in Guatemala, where the number of pre-primary schools increased from about 5,300 to 11,500 between 1998 and 2005. Combining administrative and population census data in a difference-in-differences framework, the analysis finds that access to pre-primary education increased by 2.4 percentage points the proportion of students that progress adequately and attend sixth grade by age 12. These positive although limited effects suggest the need for complementary actions to produce substantial improvements in adequate progression.

Facing the prospects of rapid aging and shrinking population over the coming decades, Slovakia needs a highly skilled workforce to help generate the productivity growth that it needs to fuel its continued convergence of living standards with its West European neighbors. Skilling up the workforce starts with equipping youth with the right cognitive and socio-emotional foundation skills. International research has identified three dimensions of skills that matter for good employment outcomes and economic growth: cognitive skills, such as literacy, numeracy, creative and critical thinking or problem-solving; socio-emotional skills and behavioral traits, such as conscientiousness, grit or openness to experience; and job- or occupation-specific technical skills, such as the ability to work as an engineer. This report focuses on cognitive skills and examines results for Slovakia from the program for international student assessment (PISA), which assesses the mathematics, reading, and science competencies of 15-year-olds. Its findings suggest that Slovakia can do significantly better in helping students develop cognitive foundation skills. This note proposes several policy recommendations, based on an analysis of Slovakia’s PISA data as well as international evidence, to make Slovakia’s education system both stronger and more inclusive.

Countries throughout Latin America and the Caribbean are reforming their education systems with the view of adding more hours to the school day. This paper examines the existing evidence on the relationship between instructional time and student learning, and reviews 15 studies measuring the effects of longer school days. It draws on examples throughout the region to characterize differences in the implementation of extended school day programs, and provides one detailed case study and cost-effectiveness exercise (for Uruguay). While the evidence suggests positive impacts across a range of outcome variables, including gains in student learning, reductions in repetition and dropout, and reductions in teenage pregnancy, there is considerable heterogeneity across programs and studies. Even using the most optimistic impact estimates, a cost-effectiveness exercise suggests that there are likely many more cost-effective reforms to achieve similar effects. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications for policy makers and practitioners considering an extension of the school day.

The Haitian education system made substantial improvements in access over the last decade, such that today the majority of Haiti’s children are in school. Despite improvements, the primary education system is highly inefficient: children start primary school 2 years late on average, and fewer than 60 percent will reach the last grade of the cycle. At each school, classroom observations were conducted using the Stallings Classroom Snapshot instrument, and questions about the school calendar and daily schedule asked. The results provide a representative picture of class time and teacher classroom practice in the Nord and Nord Est departments, and while not representative of Haiti as a whole, do provide a starting point for better understanding the major constraint to achieving a high-quality education for all children: the quality of teacher instruction. Section two describes the sample of schools and the stallings instrument; sections three and four present the main results of the classroom observations on teacher time use and pedagogical practices; section five provides estimates of overall class time that students receive; and section six concludes.

Mozambique is experiencing significant population growth with a growing number of youth (ages 15-34) into the labor market. The surge of the raw number of individuals, particularly young people, opens both challenges and opportunities: challenges, because of the need to create sufficient jobs to employ new entrants; opportunities, because if well managed, the country will benefit from a young, dynamic labor market where innovations and creative activities serve as an engine of growth, driving up per capita income and standards of living. The paper is organized as follows. The first two sections describe the supply and demand side diagnostics of the labor market, respectively, by analyzing the profiles of workers and by examining where jobs are being created. The next section discusses the determinants of employment, type of work, and earnings. Based on this analysis of the trends and labor market outcomes, the last section identifies and discusses key areas of policy interventions.

This framework paper provides an overview of what matters most for school autonomy and accountability. The focus is on public schools at the primary and the secondary level. This paper begins by grounding School Autonomy and Accountability in its theoretical evidence base (impact evaluations, lessons learned from experience, and literature reviews) and then discusses guiding principles and tools for analyzing country policy choices. The goal of this paper is to provide a framework for classifying and analyzing education systems around the world according to the following five policy goals that are critical for enabling effective school autonomy and accountability: 1) level of autonomy in the planning and management of the school budget; 2) level of autonomy in personnel management; 3) role of school councils in school governance; 4) school and student assessment, and 5) accountability to stakeholders. This paper also discusses how country context matters to school autonomy and accountability and how balancing policy goals matters to policy making for improved education quality and learning for all.

Advocates argue that voucher programs can correct the incentive problems of education systems in developing economies. An accountability perspective, based on a principal-agent framework, was developed to clarify the arguments for and against education vouchers. An assessment of findings on voucher programs in industrial countries and a review of voucher or quasi-voucher experiences in Bangladesh, Chile, Colombia, Côte d'Ivoire, and the Czech Republic support the usefulness of the analytic framework. The assessment concludes that the policy relevance of voucher programs for developing economies remains uncertain. Major voucher initiatives have been attempted only in countries with a well-developed institutional infrastructure. Some studies find favorable benefits for at least some population groups, but others find limited effects and evidence of increasing social stratification in schools. Whether vouchers lead to better outcomes or greater stratification appears related to specific contexts, institutional variables, and program designs.

The objective of this report is to analyze the state of early childhood education (ECE1) provision and the policy framework for delivering ECE in Sri Lanka, and suggest policy options for the future. The report is intended to serve several purposes. First, drawing upon the international literature in the field of early childhood development, it provides the rationale for investing in early childhood education in Sri Lanka. Second, it provides an understanding of the current policy framework and delivery system for ECE in the country. This policy analysis specifically looks at the extent to which there is an enabling environment for ECE, what provisions exist for monitoring and quality assurance, and how widely the policy is being implemented. Third, it presents a situation analysis of ECE provision in Sri Lanka, discussing the issues of access, equity, and quality in the delivery of ECE services. The discussion on equity focuses mainly on understanding disparities in access, and the analysis of quality looks at the quality of inputs, processes and outcomes, including cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes. And fourth, the report presents policy and program options based on the findings of the above analyses.

Education management information systems (EMISs), usually located within the ministry of education, are tools that can help governments improve education system administration by providing information that can be used in strategic planning, resource allocation, and monitoring and evaluation. Frequently, however, they are underutilized and become merely a reporting mechanism. Using the data at the point of collection usually individual schools in a decentralized environment and feeding them into service improvement action plans can circumvent problems with the national EMIS, and allow the data to become instrumental in improving local education service delivery outcomes.

Reliable evidence is needed to design policies that will allow overcoming Timor-Leste's remaining challenges in provision of quality education. In recent post-conflict years, aided by availability of oil revenues, Timor-Leste has been able to considerably improve availability of schools and access to education. This report presents findings of the 2012 Education Survey, collaboration between the Ministry of Education, the National Directorate of Statistics, AusAID and the World Bank. The survey collected detailed information at all primary, pre-secondary and secondary schools in the country. Its objectives were to support the improvement of Timor-Leste's education quality and service delivery through building a solid information source and analytical foundation which will allow for sound, evidence-based policy making. The survey results indicate that student absenteeism should be a major cause for concern. More than one third of grade one students were absent from school on the day of the survey, in some districts it was half or even more. Education levels of primary school teachers are low, with the majority only having secondary education. For 71 percent of primary school teachers the highest level of education is secondary school, for 6 percent it is even lower. Both demand and supply side interventions are needed to tackle the challenges faced. Some key policy areas should be: 1) improving school attendance through creating appropriate demand-side incentives; 2) enhancing teacher quality; 3) strengthening instruction language policy; 4) improving education system management; 5) improving school infrastructure and learning environment; and 6) ensuring adequate supply of textbooks.

The case study in extending the school day in Latin America includes the following countries in this paper: Argentina, Rio Negro, Chile, Brazil, Sao Paulo, Uruguay, Argentina, Mendoza, El Salvador, and Mexico.

Students from low income background often fall behind early on their education journey. Without adequate and timely support to address their learning needs they continue to perform poorly. Eventually the students lagging behind, will keep failing to learn the basic literacy and numeracy skills, and most likely will end up dropping out of school illiterate. The majority of Global Education Partnership (GPE) countries have acknowledged in their education sector plans and strategies the need to address the problem of low learning levels, and of students not going efficiently through the public education system, which has resulted in wastage of financial and human resources. Ideally interventions that aimed to improve learning of low performing students should be included in the framework of a country's educational policies in alignment with other institutional arrangements such as teacher training, curriculum, assessment, available pedagogic materials, instructional time, language of instruction (when applicable), among others. However, many of these countries are yet to draft policies that will specifically focus on helping low performers. Currently, it can be concluded that academic improvements from remedial support may help students to pass the grade or yield fast improvements, however such interventions by themselves may have not been sufficient to raise achievement at adequate levels. Remedial education programs will likely be most effective when included as part of a country's overall strategic plan to deliver quality education for all of its students. Overall, the renewed focus on low performers, many times victims of teacher neglect and other social exclusion experiences, by the means of directing programs and resources to address learning gaps is already a huge step towards achieving learning for all.

A well-designed communication plan proved to be critical in implementing successful education reform efforts in El Salvador (World Bank 1998). El Salvador's experience with the Education with Community Participation Program (EDUCO) demonstrated that special emphasis on communication strategies can build consensus, inform communities, and improve public support for complex reforms. During the 1990s, efforts to reform El Salvador's failing schools mobilized a number of actors that included rural communities, education stakeholders, and government officials. The results revealed acute shortages in basic resources that were largely tied to conditions caused during El Salvador's civil war (1980-92). At that time, many public schools in rural areas were forced to close because of security concerns and lack of public resources. The teachers that were contracted were not paid consistently and often unable to teach in the impoverished conditions. This project was financed by the World Bank along with other multilateral organizations from 1995 to 2007 (World Bank 2007). In this program, local school-based parent associations (community education associations [ACEs]), given appropriate training, were granted control over the administration of schools. This proved to be a challenge as low literacy rates were common among members of the ACEs. A lot of parents especially mothers were not able to read and write. Therefore, a training program was developed to improve literacy among parents and increase the participation among women. Financial management was also a part of these capacity-building efforts, where parents were trained to manage the funds of the associations.

This report presents a framework - Skills Toward Employment and Productivity (STEP), that provides a simple yet comprehensive way to look at skills development. It brings together research evidence and practical experience from a range of areas-from research on the determinants of early childhood development and learning outcomes, to policy experience with the reform of vocational and technical education systems and labor markets-and provides a set of powerful messages to policymakers, researchers, and practitioners. The report's emphasis on performance measurement and benchmarking, policy and program evaluation, and cross-sectoral approaches focusing on individuals throughout their lifecycle provides a solid platform for developing countries to start exploring reforms.

The sound of children's voices reciting in unison could be heard from afar, as our mission approached a school in rural Cambodia. Inside a second-grade classroom, students took turns at the blackboard. One pointed with a stick at a list of words written by the teacher, while the rest recited. A colleague approached, wrote on the blackboard the same words in a different order, and asked the children to read. Suddenly, there was silence. Most kids had merely memorized the sequence of the words and could not even identify single letters. This scene is frequent. In the poorer schools of low-income countries, many students remain illiterate for years, until they finally drop out. With some care, the process is observable. Typically the teacher writes on the board some letters or words and asks students to repeat them. The letters may be scribbled, the children often sit at a distance, textbooks may be insufficient, and children may not have anyone at home to help them read. But they do repeat the words in unison, getting cues from a few knowledgeable classmates. The teachers stand by the blackboard, address students at large, and call on the few who perform well. How come this issue has not attracted attention? One reason is that in the middle-class schools of capitals students perform much better. Soon after our rural observations, we observed second graders in a middleclass school of Pnom Penh fluently handling the extremely complex Khmer script. However, the schools of the poor have less time for their students. There is teacher absenteeism, a lack of textbooks to take home, parental inability to make up for school weaknesses, no specific curricular time for reading. The result has been chronic illiteracy, high dropout and high repetition rates. To reduce repetition and maximize enrollments, some donors advise governments to promote students automatically.

The scope of this report is twofold. First, it documents skills gaps and mismatches and attempts to understand the reasons for them. Second, it provides a framework for thinking about skills development, drawing on international best practices, with the intent of stimulating further discussion. Given the breadth of the task, in this report we narrow the focus on a particular segment of the labor force: unskilled youth. There are several reasons sustaining this choice. First, unskilled youth, most of whom are out of school and have little chance to integrate themselves into the labor market, represent a significant share of the labor force that will remain active for the next 30 or 40 years. If nothing is done, out-of school youth will benefit at best only marginally from growth, and may even become an obstacle to sustaining growth in the long term. Second, the current educational system still faces a strong challenge in retaining students, and unskilled youth are likely to remain high on the agenda in the next decade or even longer. Finally, in the past decade, training programs designed specifically for out-of-school youth have begun to emerge around the developing world, in particular in Latin America, and recent evaluations suggest that they can be effective in increasing productivity and the chance of finding employment. Nevertheless, many of the findings of this report extend to overall skills development in Cambodia. In particular, the report points to significant market failures preventing both firms and training providers from offering quality training at all levels, as well as the need to develop certification and accreditation systems that are valued and recognized by employers and span all levels of education. The report proceeds in four chapters. The first covers demographic trends and the labor market. The second looks at skills gaps and mismatches. The third reviews existing training providers. The concluding chapter considers policy options in going forward.

We report on ultrashort pulse laser micromachining experiments on different metals at average powers up to 70 W and repetition rates up to 1 MHz. The laser pulses with subpicosecond duration were generated by an ultrafast fiber CPA laser system. The influence of particle shielding and heat accumulation on the ablation efficiency and on the processing quality will be discussed.

We demonstrate efficient generation of 9.5-fs 1.8 mJ pulses by filamentation. The pulse wave front, the low energy fluctuations and the good temporal contrast make this source suited for relativistic laser-solid experiments at kHz repetition rate.

This public expenditure review identifies various opportunities to improve efficiency and equity in the social sectors. In terms of efficiency, common issues across sectors include prioritizing public interventions on the basis of their costs and effectiveness, reducing the share of personnel expenditures through a more efficient deployment of human resources, and reviewing financial mechanisms to minimize distortions and induce cost-savings (particularly in the health sector). Reallocating resources towards maintenance services, while encouraging outsourcing practices is another cross-cutting theme. Regarding equity, there is a need in all sectors to improve targeting mechanisms in the allocation of public subsidies. The Government still faces the challenge of reducing gender inequalities, particularly among low-income groups. The message also emerges that the private sector should have a more prominent role both in the financing and provision of social services. Improving institutional capacity, governance, and accountability is also a precondition for higher efficiency and equity. One of the most important recommendations from the review is the need to pursue structural reforms to promote growth, while changing the focus of public expenditure management from driving growth to ensuring stabilization and an efficient supply of public goods. The role of public expenditure in the social sectors should be to guarantee necessary investments in human capital to support growth.

This public expenditure review identifies various opportunities to improve efficiency and equity in the social sectors. In terms of efficiency, common issues across sectors include prioritizing public interventions on the basis of their costs and effectiveness, reducing the share of personnel expenditures through a more efficient deployment of human resources, and reviewing financial mechanisms to minimize distortions and induce cost-savings (particularly in the health sector). Reallocating resources towards maintenance services, while encouraging outsourcing practices is another cross-cutting theme. Regarding equity, there is a need in all sectors to improve targeting mechanisms in the allocation of public subsidies. The Government still faces the challenge of reducing gender inequalities, particularly among low-income groups. The message also emerges that the private sector should have a more prominent role both in the financing and provision of social services. Improving institutional capacity, governance, and accountability is also a precondition for higher efficiency and equity. One of the most important recommendations from the review is the need to pursue structural reforms to promote growth, while changing the focus of public expenditure management from driving growth to ensuring stabilization and an efficient supply of public goods. The role of public expenditure in the social sectors should be to guarantee necessary investments in human capital to support growth.

In this paper we propose a photonic technique for a reconfigurable microwave signal generation based on the beating of two laser modes coming from a regenerative fiber mode-locked laser (FMLL) into a photodiode. The excellent performance of this kind of pulsed laser guarantees high stability on the directly generated microwave signal even at ultrahigh frequencies (up to W band). Therefore, by using the proposed architecture, the performance of a reconfigurable full digital coherent radar system can be enhanced for example in terms of moving target indicator (MTI) improvement factor and analog to digital converter maximum signal to noise ratio. Differently from the conventional radar oscillators, whose performance strongly deteriorate with increasing frequencies, the photonic radio frequency (RF) generation always shows an excellent spectral purity. Moreover, thanks to the achievable high repetition rates and the coherence properties of the FMLL, this laser scheme has also been proposed for digitizing, directly at RF, the received signal by electro-optical sampling. Thus the advantage of using just one device for signal generation in both the transmitter and receiver chain, makes the proposed solution a cost-effective architecture for microwave signal generation.