Public health and education spending in Ghana in 1992-98 : issues of equity and efficiency

Using primary data from the health and education ministries, and household survey data from the Ghana Statistical Service, the authors analyze equity, and efficiency issues in public spending on health, and education in Ghana in the 1990s. Public expenditures in the education sector, declined in the second half of the 1990s. Basic education enrollment has been stagnant, or declining in public schools, but increasing in private schools, resulting in a moderate increase in total enrollment. Regional disparities are significant, with lower public resource allocations, and lower enrollment ratios in the three poorest regions. The quality of basic education in public schools remains poor, while it has steadily improved in privateschools. Enrollments in higher levels are lagging behind those in basic education. Ghana ranks high among West African countries in health indicators, although its health expenditures tend to favor the non-poor. While more of the rural population have gained access to health services in recent years, many still have limited access, or none. Moreover, there is no link between the pattern of public expenditures - especially the pattern of immunization across Ghana - and health outcomes. To ensure that social services are efficiently, and equitably delivered in a fiscally constrained economy, the authors argue, public expenditures need to be linked to outcomes.Primary Education,Curriculum&Instruction,Teaching and Learning,Public Health Promotion,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Primary Education,Teaching and Learning,Gender and Education,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Curriculum&Instruction

The educated citizen and global public health issues: One model for integration into the undergraduate curriculum

The Educated Citizen Initiative proposes that an understanding of public-health issues is a core component of an educated citizenry and is essential to develop one’s societal responsibility. This initiative supports the Institute of Medicine’s recommendation that “all undergraduates should have access to education in public health.” Furthermore, the Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) framework developed by the Association of American Colleges and Universities supports the “integration of public-health education into general and liberal education with an aim to produce an educated citizenry.” The LEAP framework is implemented by teaching about the role of social determinants in a population’s health status; the significance of personal and social responsibility; and providing skills for inquiry, critical thinking, problem solving, and evaluation. This article describes one university’s experience in generating an educated citizenry cognizant of comprehensive public-health conflicts, thus contributing to both a local and global perspective on learning

ICT in Education: A Study of Public Health Education

Modern technologies such as Information Communication Technologies have helped many of the development sectors. One of the sectors it has lot of scope to develop is the Education. It is also evident from the experience that the benefits of these technologies have contributed much in the area of healthcare. However, these benefits come with few limitations. A technology is useful only if (a) the systems are designed keeping the user perspective mind, (b) if the users are trained on those systems, (c) users recognize the need for a system and (d) users feel there is a need for such system. Developing a system for an application does not necessarily lead to usage. Many developments ended without giving any benefit to society. For the better usage and the benefits, one has to have a commitment to promote the system among the appropriate users by demonstrating the benefits of such systems. This further discouraged by the restrictions imposed by the IPR regime. There is some relief now due to the popularization of the free software movements. This paper is an effort to highlight the benefits of such systems in public health education with special reference to the open source online tools. Author is a faculty of a Public Health school teaching health management course to the students of public health. The paper addresses the importance of ICT systems in training the public health professionals. It also discusses the benefits and limitations of such system. The present system is a complementary teaching method to the existing classroom teaching.ICT Education, Online Tools, Learning Management System

Increasing Safety in America's Public Schools

As the Public Education Network (PEN) and its member local education funds (LEFs) are committed to creating systems of public education that result in high achievement for every child, we believe that equal opportunity, access to quality public schools, and an informed citizenry are all critical components of a democratic society. Part of making available a high-quality public education is ensuring that students and teachers spend their days in safe schools, which are free from violence, free from fear of harassment and threatening situations, and conducive to teaching and learning.Five local education funds have helped their communities broach these difficult issues with conversations on national and local issues of safety and violence in schools. During the last part of 2000, more than 250 people participated in conversations in Buffalo, NY; Lancaster, PA; McKeesport, PA; and Paterson, NJ. In February 2001, the local education fund in Atlanta, GA hosted a conversation that included students, teachers, principals, law enforcement officials, parents, and other community leaders.These local education funds conducted their community dialogues on school safety and violence as part of an assessment of their community's readiness and capacity to address the health and well being of children in their public schools. This assessment included looking into issues of health insurance coverage, coordination of health and social services for children and their families, maintaining safe learning environments, and the level of resources devoted to children's health and social services. Participants, therefore, understood that these community dialogues are not just "one-shot" efforts at addressing school safety and violence but as a part of a more comprehensive approach to address the systemic issues affecting children in their public schools.The local education funds used The 1999 Metropolitan Life Survey of the American Teacher, Violence in America's Public Schools: Five Years Later, as a starting place for their conversations, to ground their local experiences in a national context. This Lessons from the Field provides a summary of the MetLife survey and highlights findings from the conversations in four local education fund communities. (Law enforcement officials are referred to in this publication as "officers." All teachers and students referred to here are from public schools, and all "schools" referred to are public schools.

Incidence analysis of public support to the private education sector in Cote d'Ivoire

This report analyzes the equity effects of public subsidization of private schools in Cote d'Ivoire, updates previous analyses, and attempts to assess how efficiently public spending is targeted. The subsidy per student in private (and public) schools increases at higher quintiles. Students from families in the highest quintile receive more than twice the subsidy received by students from families in the lowestquintile, compared with four times more in the case of students attending public schools. However, the subsidy system is progressive as there is a clear tendency for the share of family education expenditure covered by subsidies to decline at higher quintiles. This element of progressivity is stronger in the case of private school attendance.Primary Education,Public Health Promotion,Teaching and Learning,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Gender and Education,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Gender and Education,Primary Education,Teaching and Learning,Urban Services to the Poor

Do people invest in local public goods with long-term benefits: Experimental evidence from a shanty town in Peru

This paper discusses voluntary contributions to health education in a shanty town in Peru, using a new experimental setup to identify voluntary contributions to local public goods. The experiment enables individuals to contribute to a health education meeting facilitated by an NGO, which they know will only be organised if the cumulative investment level exceeds a certain threshold value. In contrast to expectations of aid distributors, individuals contributed a substantial amount of money, despite the long-term nature of the health benefits from health education. High discount rates only seem to have had a detrimental effect on investment in a poorer subsample. Results from a complementary experiment, which identifies donations to a nutrition program, suggest that positive beliefs about short-term benefits from health education in the form of learning effects have played an important role in the investment decision. The results indicate that channelling decision-making power about public good provision to beneficiaries not necessarily implies a crowding out of investment in local public goods with long-term benefits. Hence, particular attention is given to the potential role of cash transfers in the financing of local public goods.Health education, Field Experiment, Public Good, Peru

“It falls on all our shoulders”: Overcoming Barriers to Delivering Sex Education in West Texas Schools

BACKGROUND: Many racial, socioeconomic, and geographic disparities exist in rates of teen birth and sexually transmitted infections. Increasing access to comprehensive sex education is one risk reduction strategy for these outcomes, yet access to and quality of sex education in schools often falls far below recommended standards, particularly in Texas. The current exploratory study examines barriers to effectively delivering sex education in West Texas schools and identifies strategies to help overcome these barriers. METHODS: In-depth interviews with school leaders and health education professionals (n=4) were conducted to understand teen sexual health needs in West Texas. Interviews were analyzed using descriptive coding, memoing, and quote matrices to interpret the data. RESULTS: Participants identified a number of policy-, organizational-, and interpersonal-level barriers to delivering sex education in public schools. School personnel experienced intense time pressures, a lack of institutional support, and tension with parents. Many expressed a desire to work more collaboratively with parents and participants acknowledged the important role of school health advisory councils (SHACs). CONCLUSIONS: School personnel face complex challenges at multiple levels when attempting to deliver sex education in public schools. Despite these challenges, SHACs represent a valuable opportunity for communities to work collaboratively to improve sex education in public schools

Public management and essential public health functions

The authors provide an overview of how different approaches to improving public sector management relate to so-called core or essential public health functions, such as disease surveillance, health education, monitoring and evaluation, workforce development, enforcement of public health laws and regulations, public health research, and health policy development. The authors summarize key themes in the public management literature and draw lessons for their application to these core functions.Decentralization,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Health Systems Development&Reform,Public Health Promotion,Enterprise Development&Reform,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,National Governance,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Banks&Banking Reform,Health Economics&Finance

Public spending and poverty in Mozambique

"Poverty reduction strategies often highlight public spending to improve health and education, focusing on investments in human capital among poorer members of society. In addition, debt relief programs such as the enhanced Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative often require increased spending on health and education in return for debt cancellation. Mozambique's poverty reduction strategy is closely integrated with the government expenditure program, yet up to now little is known about the extent to which public spending is targeted toward the poor in Mozambique. This paper assesses whether public expenditures on education and health are successful at reaching the poorer segments of the Mozambican population. Standard nonbehavioral benefit-incidence methodology is applied, combining individual client information from survey data with provincial-level data on the cost of service provision. Most of the public services we are able to measure are moderately progressive, although some of the instruments we could not measure are probably less equally distributed. In Mozambique, it appears that regional and gender imbalances in health and education are more significant than income-based differences. Nevertheless, increased public expenditures on health and education such as that related to the HIPC initiative are likely to have significant poverty-reducing effects." Author's Abstract