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In the education decentralization processes, community participation in education governance has been argued to be essential for improving accountability to service beneficiaries. Therefore, this paper examined the perspectives of key actors on the impact of an educational decentralization policy on improving school quality education in Junior High Schools in Ghana. Participants in the study were 54 School Management Committee (SMC)/Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) members, 106 teachers, and 11 head teachers in 11 schools drawn from two districts in the Central Region of Ghana. Teachers filled out questionnaires and interviews were conducted with SMC/PTA members using a semi-structured interview guide and with 11 head teachers. The paper reveals that the education decentralization policy, with community participation at its heart, has given schools some autonomy in their decision-making process. However, the involvement of community members in school activities has been limited mainly to financing, with little emphasis on the decision-making process in school governance. The study recommends that there should be adequate support for communities to become more involved in the decision-making process, especially in implementing the School Performance Improvement Plan for Ghana to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4.

There is a rich body of Dual Language (DL) research documenting, primarily, how Latinx students are marginalized in DL programs for the benefit of White students. We refer to this as the Brown–White binary, in which race relations are over-simplified between two racial groups to the exclusion of nuance of other racial categories. This is similar to the ways race relations have often been oversimplified in the United States (U.S.), due to its earlier histories of understanding race through a Black–White binary. In this article, we present Critical Race Theory counterstory research by considering how racialized inequality is perceived and lived from one Black mother in a Southeastern U.S. DL program in a Title I elementary school. Through two years of co-participative storying with this highly engaged African American DL parent/co-author—who also served at the time as the school’s parent-teacher association (PTA) president—we demonstrate a case of how Black families may also be marginalized in U.S. DL programs by White parents, teachers, and administrators. Three overarching themes/processes relating to both neighborhood and metaphorical gentrification of DL emerged for this Black DL PTA president. First, Whiteness was enacted as a property right by other parents in the PTA; resulting in racial battle fatigue, the second theme. Blanton ultimately found forms of resistance and self-care to navigate the physical and discursive gentrification in her school and PTA, the final theme in this research. We also provide recommendations for schools and districts to actively work to promote equity through DL, instead of for the defaulting benefit of White accrual of property.

The parent-teacher association (PTA) is a non-commercial, non-sectarian, and non-partisan body that comprises parents/legal guardians of students, teachers, and administrative staff of the school whose aim is to collaborate with the school to promote students' educational success and wellbeing. This paper aimed at highlighting the contributions of the PTA to school library management. Deducing from the literature review, the PTA supports the rights of libraries to supply materials and information that encompass all perspectives on recent and previous happenings that are uncensored in terms of bias, partisanship or doctrinal criticism. In addition, the PTA could assist the school by providing books or other material for use in the school library. In order to achieve its goal, members of the PTA must ensure that the school has a functional and well-equipped library that can facilitate students' academic vision and success.

Pupil’ absenteeism and lateness to school, dilapidated and shortage of relevant facilities in primary schools in the Northern Senatorial District of Ondo State seems to suggest lapses in parent-teacher association involvement in school affairs. This prompted the researchers to ascertain the extent of parent-teacher association (PTA) involvement in the implementation of universal basic education program in primary schools in the Northern Senatorial District of Ondo State. Three research questions guided the study and three null hypotheses were tested. The descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The population of the study was comprised of all 250 head teachers and all PTA members at all 250 primary schools in the Northern Senatorial District. Multiple stage sampling technique was used to sample 205 respondents made up of 75 head teachers and 130 PTA members. The researchers developed an instrument titled “Parent-Teacher Association Involvement in School Questionnaire (PTAISQ)” which was used for data collection. The instrument was validated by three experts. The reliability of the instrument was ascertained using Cronbach alpha and it yielded an overall reliability coefficient value of .76. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions, while t-test was used to test the null hypotheses at .05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed among others that the extent of PTA involvement in maintenance of facilities in the implementation of universal basic education program in primary schools in the Northern Senatorial District of Ondo State was high. Based on the findings, recommendations were made and conclusions were drawn.

Preferential trade agreements (PTAs) have been proliferating for the last twenty years. A large literature has studied various aspects of this phenomenon. Until recently, however, many large-N studies have paid only scant attention to variation across PTAs in terms of content and design. Our contribution to this literature is a new dataset on the design of trade agreements that is the most comprehensive in terms of both variables coded and agreements covered. We illustrate the dataset’s usefulness in re-visiting the questions if and to what extent PTAs impact trade flows. The analysis shows that on average PTAs increase trade flows, but that this effect is largely driven by deep agreements. In addition, we provide evidence that provisions that tackle behind-the-border regulation matter for trade flows. The dataset’s contribution is not limited to the PTA literature, however. Broader debates on topics such as institutional design and the legalization of international relations will also benefit from the novel data.

Purpose: The overall goal of the current study was to identify an optimal level and duration of acoustic experience that facilitates language development for pediatric cochlear implant (CI) recipients--specifically, to determine whether there is an optimal duration of hearing aid (HA) use and unaided threshold levels that should be considered before proceeding to bilateral CIs. Method: A total of 117 pediatric CI recipients (ages 5-9 years) were given speech perception and standardized tests of receptive vocabulary and language. The speech perception battery included tests of segmental perception (e.g., word recognition in quiet and noise, and vowels and consonants in quiet) and of suprasegmental perception (e.g., talker and stress discrimination, and emotion identification). Hierarchical regression analyses were used to determine the effects of speech perception on language scores, and the effects of residual hearing level (unaided pure-tone average [PTA]) and duration of HA use on speech perception. Results: A continuum of residual hearing levels and the length of HA use were represented by calculating the unaided PTA of the ear with the longest duration of HA use for each child. All children wore 2 devices: Some wore bimodal devices, while others received their 2nd CI either simultaneously or sequentially, representing a wide range of HA use (0.03-9.05 years). Regression analyses indicate that suprasegmental perception contributes unique variance to receptive language scores and that both segmental and suprasegmental skills each contribute independently to receptive vocabulary scores. Also, analyses revealed an optimal duration of HA use for each of 3 ranges of hearing loss severity (with mean PTAs of 73, 92, and 111 dB HL) that maximizes suprasegmental perception. Conclusions: For children with the most profound losses, early bilateral CIs provide the greatest opportunity for developing good spoken language skills. For those with moderate-to-severe losses, however, a prescribed period of bimodal use may be more advantageous for developing good spoken language skills.

Background Teachers, a large professional group are regularly exposed to disturbing noise at work, particularly at the primary and secondary school levels, with elevated noise peaks that may endanger their hearing. Few studies have assessed auditory consequences of occupational noise exposure among teachers and none using longitudinal data. Methods Within the French national CONSTANCES cohort, Pure Tone Average (PTA) of the better ear was calculated based on air-conduction audiometry test (0.5, 1, 2 and 4 kHz), repeated approximately every five years (up to 3 tests from inclusion) among 14,375 teachers (primary n = 5812, secondary n = 6845, university n = 1718). We used mixed effects models adjusted for socio-demographic factors (age, sex, marital, family status, rural/urban residence, financial difficulties), lifestyle (smoking and body mass index) and health conditions (hypertension, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases) to estimate mean parameters [95% confidence interval] of PTA changes in decibel Hearing Loss (dB HL) since enrolment, by teaching level (ref=university teachers) as a proxy of noise exposure. Results The study population consisted of 67% female teachers, with an average age of 44.2 years and with PTA of 12.3±7 dB HL. The mean follow-up time between the first and last audiogram was 5.3±1.5 years. Compared with university teachers, both primary and secondary school teachers had significantly poorer hearing at baseline (0.39 dB HL [0.00-0.77], p = 0.05 and 0.48 dB HL [0.12-0.85], p = 0.01 respectively). Additionally, primary school teachers experienced a slightly faster hearing deterioration over time compared to university teachers (0.11 dB HL per year [0.02-0.20], p = 0.01). Conclusions This large prospective study uncovers how primary and secondary school teachers may be particularly at risk of hearing loss. Given its detrimental impact on both ability to teach and quality of life, our results warrants further studies. Key messages • In this prospective study, primary school teachers were at higher risk of hearing loss compared to university teachers. • Better consideration of noise which can impact teachers’ job ability and quality of life is needed.

Background While screening service utilization is a proven strategy for early detection of noncommunicable diseases, population-based health checkup service utilization is very low in Ethiopia. This study aimed to assess the effect of health education in improving hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and cervical cancer screening service utilization in a district around Bahir Dar City, Ethiopia in 2024. Methods A cluster randomized controlled community trial was conducted in a district around Bahir Dar City among 214 adults in the intervention and control groups each. The intervention was health education. Trained parent-teacher association members provided a 30 min to 1 h education for the community using the existing social structures. Adults in the control group continue receiving the routine education through the health care system A structured interviewer-administered questionnaire was used to collect data. MacNemar’s test was used to assess the intervention effect. Binary logistic regression was also used to assess the intervention effect after controlling confounders. Results Overall difference in knowledge level of adults between the intervention and control groups was 34.4% ( P  < 0.005). This difference persists after controlling potential confounders. Respondents in the intervention group had 2.2 times better knowledge about noncommunicable diseases compared with respondents in the control group [AOR = 2.22, 95% CI: (1.4, 3.4)]. The overall difference in utilization of screening services for targeted NCDs between the intervention and control groups was 28.1% ( P  < 0.001). This difference persists after potential confounders were controlled. Respondents in the intervention group were 4.8 times more likely to utilize screening services compared with respondents in the control group [AOR = 4.83, 95% CI: (2.7, 8.5)]. Conclusions Health education intervention through parent-teacher association members was an effective approach to improve screening service utilization. This study suggests to use parent-teacher association members to promote screening service utilization through the existing social structures. The trial was registered in Clinical Trials.gov (NCT06639412).

International trade agreements lead to more foreign direct investment (FDI) in developing countries. This article examines the causal mechanisms underpinning this trade-investment linkage by asking whether institutional features of preferential trade agreements (PTAs), which allow governments to make more credible commitments to protect foreign investments, indeed result in greater FDI. The authors explore three institutional differences. First, they examine whether PTAs that have entered into force lead to greater FDI than PTAs that have merely been negotiated and signed, since only the former constitute a binding commitment under international law. Second, they ask whether trade agreements that have investment clauses lead to greater FDI. Third, they consider whether PTAs with dispute-settlement mechanisms lead to greater FDI. Analyses of FDI flows into 122 developing countries from 1971 to 2007 show that trade agreements that include stronger mechanisms for credible commitment induce more FDI. Institutional diversity in international agreements matters.

Researchers and policy makers overwhelmingly stress the harmonious nature of parent involvement. Researchers have focused on individual forms of parent involvement, yet collective efforts of parents in parent-teacher organizations (PTOs) are a key dynamic in schools. Drawing on a case study of an elementary school in an upper-middle-class community, we show that very high levels of parent involvement led to many conflicts. There were three main sources of these routine conflicts. Parents and educators had different priorities—parents favored a warm, friendly, and nonbureaucratic environment while the principal favored an orderly, safe, and bureaucratic environment. There were battles over authority, particularly over the planning of events. And finally, the PTO was a volunteer organization with high levels of turnover, weak lines of communication, and minimal training. This case study suggests the need to reconceptualize our models of family involvement in schooling.