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Purpose This study aims at advancing the understanding of University-Industry Collaboration (UIC) by proposing an adapted conceptual model for comprehensive contextual analysis taking industry perspective and identifying effective mechanisms for stimulating UIC in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Design/methodology/approach This study was designed as a multicase qualitative study. Data were collected through interviews of focus groups representing 26 agro-processing companies operating in Rwanda. The process consisted of two sessions evaluating the current collaboration patterns, and two sessions identifying the desired future and the mechanisms to realize it. Data were analyzed using ATLAS.ti software with the grounded theory techniques. Findings Findings indicate that current interactions are unidirectional and focus on educational collaboration. Results are short-term and do not yield sufficient benefit for the companies involved. Industry aspirations for future collaboration were identified, along with linkages between inputs, activities and outcomes. Research limitations/implications This study has two noteworthy limitations. First, this study did not consider the capacity of firms to collaborate. Second, for simplification purposes, this study did not integrate other complementary sources of knowledge for firms. To overcome these omissions, a short introduction of University–Industry Collaboration (UIC) was presented to participants highlighting and justifying the scope of the study. As research implications, this paper presents a new integrated conceptual framework, which can be useful for studies focusing on a comprehensive analysis of the UIC context and identifying effective mechanisms for improvement in the future. A construct of policies that stimulate UIC is proposed, thereby facilitating further operationalization and testing of context-specific hypotheses on policy stimuli. Practical implications In practice, the identified conceptual framework allows to holistically capture and reflect on the interrelationships between UIC factors and outcomes for a specific context, hence, informing better UIC decision-making. In this way, this paper advances the operationalization of the argument for reconciling organizational theories with their practices. Social implications This paper presents a systemic means for organizational theories to perform their adaptive role in society. Indeed, as demonstrated by the empirical results, the proposed framework is effective not only in systematically assessing the current situation, but also in predicting the desired state in the future. In other words, the proposed framework facilitates prescience theorizing, which is a mechanism for ensuring that organizational theories adapt to future requirements of the society. Originality/value This study develops a new integrative conceptual framework to accommodate the interaction between UIC’s institutional decision-making and existing macrolevel frameworks of innovation ecosystems. In terms of methodology, the value of this study lies in its adoption of an ex ante approach to the development of mechanisms to stimulate UIC. This use of prescience theory (Corley and Gioia, 2011) constitutes an important – but long-neglected – approach to UIC and its adaptive role in society.

Research on participation and inequality in adult education and training shows ‘system characteristics’ play a key role in restricting access to young adults with low levels of education. This chapter focuses on what advantages an inclusive policy on lifelong learning has for society as a whole. Structural barriers mean that an opportunity (or desire) to participate is not equally distributed, yet some low-educated adults do participate. From them we can learn how barriers can be lowered. Initiatives under the EU’s Youth Guarantee and Upskilling Pathway programmes are analysed across nine countries, representing different welfare regimes and approaches to adult education. Learners’ and staff experiences are broadly similar across programmes and countries. Participants’ motivation and confidence are key to success, pointing to the need for individual support.

Samenvatting Volwasseneneducatie (een Leven Lang Ontwikkelen, LLO) wint aandacht in het politieke debat. Het maakt mensen onder andere weerbaarder voor schokken op de arbeidsmarkt. In rurale regio’s is er doorgaans minder deelname aan LLO. In de streek de Westhoek, en bij uitbreiding de Vlaamse provincie West-Vlaanderen, is er echter een relatief groter engagement van bedrijven om LLO te bekostigen dan in andere regio’s van het Vlaams Gewest. We maken een verkennende analyse van deze geobserveerde paradox aan de hand van registerdata over 125.614 bedrijven met een hoofdzetel in het Vlaams Gewest. Met deze data bestuderen we in totaal vier mogelijke hypothesen: (1) werknemers oefenen meer beroepen uit die geassocieerd worden met LLO; (2) er zijn relatief meer grote bedrijven in de Westhoek gevestigd, die meer LLO kunnen bekostigen; (3) het gemiddelde aantal werknemers in LLO ligt hoger in de Westhoek; en (4) LLO wordt door de bedrijven zelf georganiseerd om het gebrek aan formeel opleidingsaanbod te compenseren. Uit de verkennende analyse blijkt dat niet-formeel leren populair is onder middelgrote en kleine ondernemingen in de Westhoek, een fenomeen dat elders in Vlaanderen niet als zodanig wordt geobserveerd. Hieruit leren we dat bedrijven in rurale regio’s een belangrijke rol hebben in het aanbieden van opleidingsaanbod aan hun werknemers.

This study evaluates the effectiveness of an intervention of formative assessments with a clicker-based technology on anxiety and academic performance. We use a randomized experiment in physics education in one school in Dutch secondary education. For treated students the formative assessments are operationalized through quizzing at the end of each physics class, where clickers enable students to respond to questions. Control students do not receive these assessments and do not use clickers, but apart from that the classes they attend are similar. Findings from multilevel regressions indicate that the formative assessments significantly reduce anxiety in physics, and improve academic performance in physics in comparison with a traditional teaching. Furthermore, a mediation effect of anxiety in physics on academic performance is observed. In sum, this implies that an easily to implement technique of formative assessments can make students feel more at ease, which contributes to better educational performance. ispartof: RESEARCH IN SCIENCE EDUCATION vol:51 issue:SUPPL 1 pages:1-20 status: Published online

In this paper we study if feedback strategies during formative assessment with polling technology have an impact on learning gains. We conduct a randomized experiment in physics class in upper secondary education with the web-based polling system Socrative comparing three conditions. In the cooperative condition students receive a combination of peer discussion and teacher feedback, while in the individual condition they receive only teacher feedback. In the control condition students do not receive any feedback, from either teacher or peers. To measure what individuals learn from teacher feedback, whether or not combined with peer discussions, students in all three conditions individually answer paired isomorphic multiple-choice questions. Per question, we study the probability to answer the second isomorphic question correct and compare this between conditions The analyses show that teacher feedback, regardless of the peer discussions, positively affects learning gains in question pairs of the treatment conditions in comparison with the control condition. However, the cooperative condition shows that the largest learning gains occur when peer discussion is followed by teacher feedback. The findings provide insights into which feedback strategies affect learning gains in question pairs and are important for teachers when implementing feedback strategies during formative assessments.

University-industry collaboration (UIC) is increasingly seen as an important driver of economic growth, but knowledge on its implementation mechanisms is still limited especially in developing countries. This constrains the capacity of those countries to design adequate policies and strategies to foster such interactions. This paper provides information about the extent to which academic staff from Tertiary Education Institutions (TEIs) in Rwanda interact with industry. It identifies the factors underlying their propensity to engage in interactions and the barriers or challenges faced. Data were collected from 334 academic staff permanently employed by 17 Higher Education Institutions in Rwanda. Results indicate a low level of interaction except in some informal channels arguably less inclined to foster relational learning and knowledge creation. Regression analyses indicated that the type of institution and the academic grades are significantly associated with the propensity of academic staff to interact with industry. In addition, four main barriers to interaction are identified and they are all linked to poor support from the government and the universities. Therefore, the study recommends the elaboration of explicit policies and strategies at country and institutional levels to set the stage for such indispensable interactions.

This paper systematically reviews the literature on the causes of leaving school early in Africa and Asia. Despite the improvement in primary school enrolment in the developing countries by 2015, the persistence of school dropout, however, renders this improvement almost insignificant. This leads to the necessity of observing the prolonged determinants of dropping out from school amid the current global development efforts to improve educational attainment in these countries. For this purpose, we review 43 articles in this study. These articles are peer‐reviewed publications on the causes of early school leaving or school dropout in Africa and Asia, from the year 2001 to present (2018). A great number of causes are found to be linked to the reason for leaving school early. However, the most common causes for early school leaving include lack of income, parents’ education and employment status, living in a single‐parent household, being a illegitimate child, age, region of residence and school performance. Specifically, for Asia, immigration and ethnicity are important factors. This paper recommends that policies to prevent early school leaving require multi‐perspective targeting, involving individual, school, community and family. For instance, attention needs to be drawn to the effective trickling down of necessary school provisions and other contemporary societal provisions to all communities. There is also need for improved individual and family awareness on the positive impact of education as well as the dangers of certain cultural beliefs. ispartof: Review of Education vol:7 issue:3 pages:496-522 status: published

We investigate the importance of contextual variables in explaining the differences in the correlation of education from parents to children in 48 developing countries. The contextual characteristics are internationally comparable macro-economic and institutional indicators. We use measures on GDP and industrial development, public spending, the education system, infrastructure, health outcomes, political stability and accountability. Our results show that contextual characteristics account for 39% of the explained cross-country variation in the education correlation across generations. The quality of the education system is the most important explanation of the variation of the intergenerational education correlation in the developing countries.

This paper investigates the effects of training apprentices on the productivity of Hungarian firms. In order to retrieve a causal estimate of the effects of apprenticeship training on firm performance, we apply a set of dynamic panel data estimation techniques. We create a unique administrative matched employer–employee panel dataset containing over 40,000 employers in Hungary over the period between 2003 and 2011 in the manufacturing, construction, wholesale and retail, and hotels and restaurants sector. Our results indicate that an increase in the share of apprentices (per full-time equivalent worker) decreases the productivity of Hungarian firms in all four sectors. Further, we observe that retention rates of apprentices are low and further slacken in the final years of observation. ispartof: Empirical Economics vol:60 issue:4 pages:1685-1718 status: published

Although widely used in policy debates, the literature on children’s outcomes when raised by same-sex parents mostly relies on small selective samples or samples based on cross-sectional survey data. This has led to a lack of statistical power and the inability to distinguish children born to same-sex parents from children of separated parents. We address these issues by using unique administrative longitudinal data from the Netherlands, which was the first country to legalize same-sex marriage. These data include 2,971 children with same-sex parents (2,786 lesbian couples and 185 gay male couples) and over a million children with different-sex parents followed from birth. The results indicate that children raised by same-sex parents from birth perform better than children raised by different-sex parents in both primary and secondary education. Our findings are robust to use of cousin fixed effects and coarsened exact matching to improve covariate balance and to reduce model dependence. Further analyses using a novel bounding estimator suggest the selection on unobserved characteristics would have to be more than three times higher than the selection on observed characteristics to reduce the positive estimates to zero. ispartof: American Sociological Review vol:85 issue:5 pages:830-856 status: published

This paper provides a systematic review of the growing literature on the poor match between employees' field degree and the job requirements, also referred to as horizontal mismatch. We identify the different definitions used in the literature and find that each measure of horizontal mismatch yields substantially different incidence rates. We discuss the validity of the different measures and conclude that a more uniform definition of horizontal mismatch is needed. The likelihood of horizontal mismatch is among other things determined by the extent to which employees possess general skills as opposed to occupation-specific skills, and, it appears to be more frequently present among older workers. Compared to well-matched employees, horizontally mismatched workers generally incur a wage penalty, are less satisfied with their jobs, and are more likely to regret their study programme. The ensuing findings offer guidance to prevent horizontal mismatch as well as a roadmap for future research.

This article empirically examines the implications of competition among Dutch secondary schools: (1) regarding the sorting of students by performance levels in schools at the begiining of secondary education; and (2) regarding performance gains in the secondary school career, controlling for the aforementioned sorting patterns. We used data from about 13,000 students enrolled at 102 school locations in The Netherlands. Using differences in the distribution of competition intensity across local education markets, we applied Kernel estimation techniques to match students from relatively high- to low-competitive markets on the basis of student and household characteristics. Our results indicate that, with increasing competition, relatively more schools target the group of high-achieving students. As a result, schools will arguably have to enrol more ‘students at the margin’ to ensure sufficient enrolment rates. To conclude, we observed that, accounting for sorting patterns, competition was related to small negligible improvements in academic achievement at the bottom of the distribution of student performance within the first three years of secondary education. Furthermore, a negative result for competition was found for categorical academic classrooms settings.

Theory and evidence indicate that, if family size grows, the younger children will get less parental involvement than the older children. These differences in parental involvement through birth order may impact academic achievement if, and only if, parental involvement is an important determinant of children’s educational attainment. The oldest child then benefits the most in terms of educational outcomes. Estimates for the Netherlands show a robust negative relationship between birth order and parental involvement, and significant positive medium to large effects of parental involvement through birth order on various measures of academic achievement. Furthermore, our findings indicate that academic achievement is rooted in a school-supportive home climate, and often created by the mother. However, when it comes to math performance and grade retention, it is better that both parents unduly interfere with school. We also find that parents with low socio-economic status and from immigrant families are as much involved in the education of their children as the average Dutch family, but their involvement is less effective in terms of children’s learning outcomes.

This paper estimates the short-run causal effect of tumor detection and treatment on psychosocial well-being, work and income. Tumor detection can be considered as a random event, so that we can compare individuals' average outcomes in the year of diagnosis with the year before. We argue for using panel data estimation techniques that enable us to control for observed and unobserved information intrinsic to the individual and time constants. We use data of a national representative panel in the Netherlands that includes health survey information and data on work, education, and income between 2007 and 2012. Our findings show differences in the psychosocial dysfunction of men and women in response to tumor detection and treatment. Women, not men, are decreasingly likely to participate in the labor force as a result of malignant tumor detection, while no significant effects are found on her personal or household income. We also demonstrate that fixed effects panel data models are superior to matching techniques.

Wages are a composite measure of the return to education and the return to work experiences. Work experiences are often defined as workers who gain experiences on-the-job. However, work experiences can also be part of a study curriculum in vocational secondary education. We estimate the return to in-school work experiences by comparing the Heckman selection model and the Rubin matching model. First, we show that students with in-school work experiences earn +16% more in the first years of labour than their theoretical peers. Second, we indicate that both empirical models do not appropriately deal with censored observations in the presence of an informal market. Including information on a set of censored observations increases the effect to +22%.

Mismatch tussen onderwijs en arbeidsmarkt betekent meestal een slechte aansluiting tussen het gevolgde onderwijs door de werknemer en het gevraagde onderwijs door de werkgever. Landelijke cijfers hierover ontbreken echter. Is mismatch in Nederland feit of fictie?

This study explores the effects of formative feedback on students' metacognitive skills when using feedback strategies with polling technology. Using a randomized field experiment among 633 physics students in six schools in Dutch secondary education, we study assessments with the polling technology Socrative, by dividing students into three groups. Students in the cooperative group use a combination of peer discussions and teacher feedback, while students in the individual group use teacher feedback. To compare differences in metacognitive skills, students in the control group only use Socrative, but do not receive formative feedback from either teacher or peers. The results show that there is a significant positive effect of the cooperative treatment on both metacognitive skills and motivation in comparison with the control group. We find that students with low metacognitive skills benefit significantly more from the cooperative treatment than students with high metacognitive skills. No effects are found for the individual treatment. However, girls significantly increase their metacognitive skills and are more motivated than boys, when using an individual treatment. Additionally, a mediation analysis shows that motivation partially mediates the cooperative treatment and metacognitive skills. Based on these results, we recommend a combination of peer discussions and teacher feedback in physics courses. ispartof: Computers & Education vol:152 pages:1-21 status: published

© 2017, © 2017 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This study examines whether the expansion in higher education over the past 20 years has contributed to better education–job matches on the labour market. In particular, we relate changes in the average formal schooling level of workers on the regional labour market to the educational attainment of the recruited staff within companies operating on that regional labour market. Hereby, it is acknowledged that companies most often recruit from a pool of workers available on the regional labour market. Next, we estimate the effects of changes in the level of schooling of the staff owing to the increased supply of higher educated graduates on the regional labour market on mismatch. Data from the Dutch Labour Demand Panel are used covering 7451 unique companies over the period 1991–2011. The results indicate that a one-month increase in companies’ workforce average schooling level decreases the probability that companies report mismatch with −3.0 percentage points. ispartof: Studies In Higher Education vol:43 issue:11 pages:1854-1867 status: published

This paper explored the effects of in-class-level differentiation by making innovative use of an interactive whiteboard (SMARTboard) on math proficiency. Therefore, this paper evaluates the use of SMARTboard in class, in combination with teacher training, using a randomized field experiment among 199 pre-vocational students in seventh grade in the Netherlands. During 6 weeks, students in the intervention group participated in math classes in which the SMARTboard was used to apply level differentiation. The teachers of these classes received a specific training (Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge [TPACK]) in using the SMARTboard in class. Control classes were taught by teachers without the training, who did not use the SMARTboard in class. The results showed that level differentiation in class, which was possible because of the efficient use of the SMARTboard, significantly increased math proficiency with 0.25 points.

Unauthorized truancy is considered as one of the earliest signals of a prospective school dropout decision. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of an active school attendance intervention tackling school dropout in Dutch secondary education. The intervention consists of increased care for, and interaction with, at-risk students by, for example, visits at home. It relies on professional mentors, teachers, case managers, social workers, and compulsory education age consultants. We analyze the effect of the intervention by a difference-in-differences analysis in combination with matching estimation techniques. The results indicate that the intervention schools significantly reduced school dropout with $$-0.54$$ % points in the school year 2009–2010 compared to the control schools and the school year 2008–2009. The highest impact ( $$-1.4$$ % points) of the intervention was estimated for the least able students.

This review specifically focuses on the correlations between various parent strategies and student achievements in compulsory education. Therefore, Hoover-Dempsey's framework on parental involvement in homework will be updated with more recent findings from the international scientific literature. When parents facilitate, structure or emotionally support the homework process and, as such, are not actively involved in assisting in homework tasks, then the literature indicates indecisive or negative results. However, when parents are directly involved in assisting their children during homework tasks, then positive correlations were found throughout the literature, in particular when parents engage in meta-strategies or support the child's understanding of homework. While policy is primarily focused on providing instruments for parents to facilitate or structure the homework process, the current review suggests that parents need to be better informed on specific strategies that accommodate the student's need when assisting in homework tasks in order to improve achievements.

Enhanced student commitment to the school, peers and teachers may improve student motivation and reduce school dropout. A Dutch dropout prevention measure in this respect deals with smoothing the transition from the pre-vocational school to the vocational school in order to reduce school dropout. Potential dropout students are followed during the summer break, go through an intake procedure, and communication between the pre-vocational school and the vocational school is enhanced by transferring a file containing detailed information on the student. Also a small government experiment offered the possibility to students to attend classes from familiar teachers in their pre-vocational school. Using regional borders as an instrument, and accounting for differences in the underlying student population in a quasi-experimental set-up, the results show, on the one hand, that the transition policy did not decline school dropout among native Dutch students. On the other hand, ethnic minority students increasingly dropped out of school one year after the transition policy became effective.

School absenteeism (or truancy) may be a signal of an ongoing process of student attrition that eventually leads to early school leaving. This article estimates how unauthorized school absenteeism accelerates the dropout decision. In particular, the timing of the dropout decision of truants is compared with the timing of regular school attendees using administrative data with insights into wrongly specified truancy spells. We correct in a Bayesian duration model for issues on data uncertainty and show that only a Bayesian structure on the data yields insightful and consistent results. The results indicate that the risk of truants to leave school early before the end of the compulsory education age increases with as much as 37.4%.

This paper reviews the growing literature on early school leaving. We clarify what is at stake with early school leaving, and touch upon underlying problems and methodological issues raised in the literature. The paper investigates the levels, the methods and models with which the topic has been studied, and discusses potential (dis)advantages of each of those. We focus on early school leaving in all its complexity, and on the interplay of relevant (levels of) factors, rather than on just certain factors, typically located in individual students, schools or families. The findings in the literature are discussed and placed into perspective. Finally, a wide set of policy measures are discussed.

The origin of the obesity epidemic in developing countries is still poorly understood. It has been prominently argued that economic development provides a natural interpretation of the growth in obesity. This paper tests the main aggregated predictions of the theoretical framework to analyze obesity. Average body weight and health inequality should be associated with economic development. Both hypotheses are confirmed: we find higher average female body weight in economically more advanced countries. In relatively nondeveloped countries, obesity is a phenomenon of the socioeconomic elite. With economic development, obesity shifts toward individuals with lower socioeconomic status

In line with the Lisbon Agenda, set by the European Council in the year 2000, European governments formulated ambitious plans to halve the level of early school-leavers by 2012. This paper outlines the dropout prevention measures in the Netherlands and analyzes their influence at both the individual and school level. While most policy measures correlate negatively with the individual dropout decision, only “mentoring and coaching” (i.e., matching of students with a coach from public or private organizations), “optimal track or profession” (e.g., work placement) and “dual track” (i.e., re-entering education for dropout students) have a significant negative impact on the individual dropout decision. By means of quantile regressions, we observe that schools with a relatively high dropout rate benefit the most from dropout prevention measures.

This paper contributes to the growing literature on school dropout by proposing and empirically testing a theoretical framework on the enrollment decision of youngsters in secondary education. The model relates school dropout to time preferences, motivation, opportunity costs, and policy measures, and is empirically tested on longitudinal data of about 5,000 Dutch vocational students. We evaluate the enrollment decision of students for (1) different intensity levels of dropout prevention policy, and for (2) different levels of economic development. The results indicate that the model can accurately predict actual enrollment rates over the period 2000-2011. Using the model to forecast the level of school dropout in the Netherlands by the year 2020, it is observed that a very strict dropout prevention policy could yield nearly maximum enrollment rates (i.e., 97%) in schools. However, the annual budget for a similar dropout prevention policy is estimated at 574 million euros or 0.10% of the Dutch GDP.

Naming and shaming is a frequently applied incentive by supra-national organizations. Although common practice, a mere comparison between the outcome variable is meaningless. The observed outcome variable consists of two parts: (1) a part which is due to the general economic climate and where the policy maker does not have an influence on; (2) a ‘net’ part which is the direct result of policy interventions. This paper suggests a regression model to estimate the net policy outcome. The proposed linear panel data model accounts for short and long term economic influences, as well as time and country fixed effects. This yields an indication on the effect attributed to policy making. It is applied to early school leaving outcomes, which increasingly attract attention since recent policy actions stipulated in, e.g., the Lisbon Agenda or the No Child Left Behind Act. Despite Portugals’ best performance in the traditional naming and shaming model, once controlled for non direct policy influences, the results indicate that Luxembourg and the Netherlands can be named, while Portugal and Spain should be shamed.

A straightforward way to prevent students from leaving education without a higher secondary diploma is increasing the compulsory education age. The idea is that, by staying longer in school, more students eventually obtain a higher secondary diploma. This paper examines the impact of a one-year increase in compulsory school-age on dropping out of secondary education by a difference-in-differences analysis. For this, we exploit a recent compulsory education policy reform in the Netherlands. After controlling for confounding factors and observable covariates, we find that the one year increase in compulsory school-age reduces dropout by 2.5 percentage points. The effect, however, is entirely situated in the group non-liable to the policy reform. We observe that native Dutch vocational students, mostly without retention in grade, but also without a higher secondary diploma at hand, more often left school in the immediate period before the policy reform. Given the economic revival at that time, this may reflect anticipation of labor market opportunities.

The origin of the obesity epidemic in developing countries is still poorly understood. It has been prominently argued that economic development provides a natural interpretation of the growth in obesity. This paper tests the main aggregated predictions of the theoretical framework to analyze obesity. Average body weight and health inequality should be associated with economic development. Both hypotheses are confirmed: we find higher average female body weight in economically more advanced countries. In relatively nondeveloped countries, obesity is a phenomenon of the socioeconomic elite. With economic development, obesity shifts toward individuals with lower socioeconomic status.

We conduct an RCT that estimates the impact of a Certificate Programme on Educational Mentorship and Coaching on the prevalence and quality of induction activities in Rwandan primary schools. To this end, School Based Mentors (SBM) and tutors of the pre-service Teacher Training Centre (TTC) are enrolled in the Certificate programme. Mentors are active in the primary schools of the first intervention group. Tutors from the pre-service TTC additionally monitor the situation at school in the second intervention group. Results indicate a significant increase in teachers’ participation in induction activities in both intervention groups compared to the control group. Further, we estimate positive effects on non-cognitive outcomes of teachers, who participated in the induction activities between March and November 2019. Largest effects are found for emotional exhaustion, teacher efficacy, and work-related needs satisfaction.