Community Peace Building Approach in the Context of Afghanistan

As peace building, we understand that it seeks to prevent violence and help people to recover from violence, mostly structural violence. It also helps people to conduct their relationships to promote sustainable coexistence (Schirch, 2004). Puzzle can be raise how we can strength community level peace building process to build structural stability besides peace keeping. I will talk about the community peace building sustained by traditional Afghan society and their own strategies. This is to represent the idea that “people are the best resource for sustaining peace” (Tadjbakhsh, 2005). Some practices of peace building definitely should rise where peace building can address state building as well in regard to the responses from local and international role players in dealing with the challenges of operating in an uncertain and weak structured country where vision for a sustainable change is not clear.  I would like to show how nation state building process can be addressed with this local peace building activities which is merely called as community based development aimed for social coordination and civic involvement. Besides, problems with the top down approach of government and how other factors influence will also be discussed. 

Girls\u27 Education: A Behavioral Analysis

Universal education has been an international development goal for a very long time, and gaps still exist in gender parity in developing countries. This project aims to address the fact that while the provision of affordable and accessible education in- stitutions have seen great successes in the past, perhaps the way forward now is to analyze the demand side issues. Due to cultural norms, demand for girls’ education in developing countries is lacking. The first part of the paper explores the psychological constraints of present bias, role model effect and stereotype threat in the context of girls’ educational demands. The second part of the paper analyzes several randomized control trials (RCTs) with the lens of behavioral economics, and then proposes a new RCT to test the role model effect on primary school girls in rural Bangladesh. The proposal calls for the distribution of short stories that portray empowered women to young girls, with the hopes that this will create a virtuous cycle of empowered women acting as role models for younger generations in the long run, while short term effects will be measured on the basis of changes in aspirations

Internet Usage and Communication Behaviour Among Academic and Non-Academic Female Staff in Three Malaysian Universities

In the Internet world the fastest growing audience is women. Apart from the limitless wonderment about the technical capabilities, the Internet has stimulated grave concern about its social impact as it is alleged to affect social relationships since Internet users are said to spend less time communicating with family and friends. Though Malaysia is a nation entering the information age with women constituting half of its population, no study has yet been done to investigate this issue. Therefore, this study was conducted specifically to determine (1) working women's communication behaviour at home and the workplace, (2) the differences in communication behaviour between female Internet users and nonusers, (3) pattern of Internet usage among female Internet users, (4) changes in communication time at home and the workplace and the relationship between time spent for Internet and changes in time for communication, (5) the most effective demographic characteristics to discriminate between Internet users and non-users; (6) reasons for not using Internet for the women who have Internet access. The study was conducted on the academic and non-academic staff in three universities in the Klang Valley. Responses from 327 subjects were finally used for the study. Findings of the present study do not substantiate the fact that Internet users spend less time communicating at home or the workplace. Rather, compared to Internet non-users, they are found to spend more time communicating with children. In communication behaviour, differences between users and non-users were detected in communicating some topics and in usage of some modes of communication. For communication in personal or working life, there is no indication that time spent for Internet has any negative relation with the change in time spent for communication. However, time spent for Internet is found to be negatively related with the change in time for using some modes and media. Discriminant analysis shows that the three most effective demographic variables to differentiate between Internet users and non-users are education level, having studying children, and age. The variable, having studying children has been identified as a new discriminant demographic variable as compared to the characteristics of adopters in the existing technology adoption model. Pornography in Internet is the most frequently cited reason for not using the Internet

Conservation Initiatives/Practices at Universities

Growing actions on putting into practice the policy for improving sustainable development gives universities great variety of opportunities on implementation of different ‘green’ technologies in their campuses. Campus greening is the first step towards sustainability. The purpose of this article is to present existing approaches on the categories of sustainable campus initiatives, their significance for complete region development and the state of the environment. On the example of the inner garden of Volgograd State University, the authors describe the importance of greening the external campus sites for minimization of the negative environmental and health affects for students and faculty staff. The green initiative reflects the institution’s function as center of technological and social regional development. The green garden can reduce stress and also provide an esthetic sense by involving attractive surroundings. The impact of climatic zone on emerging of appropriate management and maintenance systems, meaningful comparison with the past landscape solutions are also reviewed in the present article. By implementing green technologies, the university shows its prudence and readiness to behave responsibly, sensibly and maturely in response to sustainability issues of the present and the future

Policy brief: Teacher professional development for students with disability in the Asia-Pacific

Around the world, policymakers and development organisations are increasingly supporting the education of students with disability, particularly in the bid to achieve United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4 – to ensure ‘inclusive and equitable quality education for all’. Yet globally, more than half of students with disability drop out of secondary school due to the lack of support in classrooms (UNESCAP, 2019). In the Asia-Pacific region, resource shortages and high student drop-out rates significantly impact the shift to inclusive education. Additionally, educational segregation of students with disability is widely accepted in low- and middle-income countries in the region, despite international evidence of improved academic and social outcomes for students with disability educated in inclusive settings. Developing teachers’ understanding of disabilities and building their capacity to implement evidence-based inclusive teaching practices and effectively use assistive technologies, are key to transitioning to inclusive education of students with disability

Explaining students’ attitudes towards a sustainable future: Evidence from SEA-PLM 2019 data

This report, published by the Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Centre, discusses how students’ attitudes towards global issues are now crucial more than ever to build a sustainable world for future generations. The first section describes why students’ attitudes towards school and learning are important and how they are linked to the Educational Prosperity Framework (Willms & Tramonte, 2015). The second section highlights the literature about the key factors which can influence students’ attitudes towards school and learning and how they are related to students’ attitudes towards sustainable development. The third section discusses the methods used for analysing the relationships between these different factors and outcomes, using data from the Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics (SEA-PLM) program in 2019. It also explains the rationale for the selection of the key variables. The fourth section presents the main results. The fifth section concludes with some key observations that support the goal of raising the awareness of future generations of their ecological footprints and to strive for a sustainable world

Diagnosed with primary adrenal insufficiency? search adrenoleukodystrophy-two brothers presented with similar phenotype

X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy (X-ALD) is a genetic disease with a variety of phenotypic expression. This is the first case report of X-AMN/ALD in two brothers in Bangladesh confirmed by raised VLCFA. Our index patient of 19 years presented on 2014 with adrenal insufficiency, after one year developed progressive spastic paraparesis along with cognitive declination and behavioral abnormality. His only brother was clinically asymptomatic at presentation with Addison’s disease and extensor planter reflexes. After three years of follow up, index patient became bed bound with slurred speech, urinary urge incontinence and his brother developed spastic paraparesis with cognitive impairment. None had gonadal impairment. Follow up MRI after three years revealed lesion in brainstem in both along with atrophy of thoracic segment of spinal cord in index patient and cerebellum, internal capsule involvement in his brother. Both were of pure AMN variety but due to presence of cognitive impairment and behavioral abnormality they can be categorized as cerebral variety of AMN. On 2023, our index patient is still surviving with major functional disability and his brother died on 2019, 5 years of initial diagnosis

Policy brief: Investigating school-based programs that support student mental health and psychosocial wellbeing in low- and middle-income countries

School closures and disruptions to mental health services linked to the COVID-19 pandemic have significantly impacted the lives of children, young people and their families. Now, more than ever, schools are expected to provide emotional and psychosocial support and stability to students, educators and other school staff. Education systems are therefore investing more resources into school-based mental health programs to ensure they can provide the required level of support, in addition to acknowledging the need for social-emotional skill development. The ever-growing number of school-based mental health and wellbeing programs make it challenging to identify programs that are effective. It is even harder to identify school-based mental health programs that go on to demonstrate improved academic outcomes. This policy brief provides recommendations for policymakers and development partners to implement effective school-based mental health and wellbeing programs that also provide evidence on improvements related to learning outcomes. The recommendations are derived from a rapid evidence assessment by the Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Centre, which collates evidence on school-based mental health programs linked to student academic outcomes. This policy brief was funded by the Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Centre, a long-term partnership between ACER and the Australian Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Rapid review of effective practice principles in the design and delivery of digital resources for teachers

This rapid review, commissioned by Life Education Australia (LEA), gathered evidence about effective practice in the design and delivery of digital professional learning for teachers. Its goal was to inform development of principles to guide the design and delivery of LEA’s own digital resources for teachers. The key research question for the review was: What does the research evidence say about the design and delivery of digital / online resources for teachers and what practice implications and recommendations could be made based on this research evidence