The Welsh Assembly Government is nothing if not consultative. The most recent draft policy out for public debate aims to improve the way adult community learning (ACL) is planned and delivered--in order to provide demonstrable benefits for learners. This latest consultation sits under "Skills that Work for Wales," the Assembly…

Recently, spending and fees at colleges and universities have been rising faster than family incomes. If this trend persists, increasing emphasis will be placed on endowments as a source of finance. This paper examines financial planning when growth rates for the sources and uses of funds differ. First, we examine concepts of "intergenerational…

Akmal et al. (2002) and Sanders (2001) acknowledged the 100-year debate on the purpose[s] of technology education (TE) and its debatable ties to industrial arts. The debate has been further fueled by the fact most states classify TE as career and technical education. However, some of these states allow Carl D. Perkins federal funding to support TE…

The performance management of higher education institutions is a major challenge for many countries. Such institutions deliver mostly a social as opposed to an economic return, and cannot be evaluated using the same approach as is applicable to a business enterprise. Many countries have developed rather complex and elaborate approaches to this…

The 1988-89 Budget provides more detail on the Commonwealth's intentions for higher education as outlined in the Green and White Papers. This article focuses on one consequence of the Budget: the decline in operating grants per student in the period 1989 to 1991. Not all the data on expenditure and enrolments necessary for precise estimates are…

Compulsory education in China's rural areas has come a long way since China adopted the policy of reform and opening up to the outside world toward the end of 1978. By 2004, compulsory education had become available and illiteracy had been eliminated among 93.6 percent of the nation's total population; the enrollment rate of school-age children…

Since 2001, the Chinese central government has begun to take on more financial responsibility for basic education beginning with a modest RMB100 million to provide free textbooks to poor students in western rural areas. This practice has been gradually expanded with the central government providing free textbooks to a widening pool of poor rural…

The present paper starts by discussing the principles of public funding of universities. The size of the social returns to investment in education gives an indication regarding the most efficient use of resources, while the difference between the private and the social rates relates to issues of equity. The available evidence is contrasted to…

Financial aid systems help make higher education available to all who can benefit. To "adjust" the existing financial aid system to make it more student friendly and open doors currently closed to many part-time learners and students with the greatest financial challenges, state policy changes and greater private sector initiatives…

Traditionally, Kyrgyzstan, like other countries of the former Soviet Union, held a fairly high position from the standpoint of the population's average level of education. As of the beginning of period of transition, the level of education in Kyrgyzstan was relatively high. By 1991, the rate of literacy among the adult population was 97.7 percent.…

In January 2010, the General Assembly passed the Complete College Tennessee Act (CCTA), a comprehensive reform agenda that seeks to transform public higher education through changes in academic, fiscal and administrative policies at the state and institutional level. At the center of these reforms is the need for more Tennesseans to be better…

Using fiscal data provided by the finance office of the school district, and personnel data obtained from the California Basic Education Data System (maintained by the California Department of Education, or CDE), the authors present analyses to provide a foundation for local policymakers that may be used to assess whether there are inequities in…

This report provides an overview of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program and the author's plan for evaluating it over a five year period. It also presents a brief summary of the main findings of the four distinct topical reports that the author and his colleagues have completed for 2006-07--the baseline year of the evaluation. Those four…

Modern personnel economics emphasizes the importance of strategic, integrated compensation policy in an organization. In this paper I review key features of the compensation system for public school teachers. The rigidities and inefficiencies that arise from single salary schedules and other features of the compensation regime, and their…

The newly released Thomas B. Fordham Institute report "Fund the Child: Bringing Equity, Autonomy and Portability to Ohio School Finance," is the latest in a series of reports promoting the implementation of decentralized governance of public schooling coupled with student-based allocation of revenues to schools. While the current report…