Production of Cognitive and Life Skills in Public, Private, and NGO Schools in Pakistan.

The share of private and NGO schools in primary education has substantially increased over time, though the public sector is still a major player in this area. The present study analyses the factors determining the quality of education offered by the three types of schools and draws policy recommendations for improving primary education in Pakistan. The study compares learning achievement of Class 4 students enrolled in 50 public, private, and NGO schools located across six districts of Pakistan and in Azad Kashmir in terms of their scores in Mathematics, Urdu, and General Knowledge tests. The analysis shows that, practically, there is no gap between public and NGO schools in terms of the test scores of their students. However, a significant test score gap was found between the students enrolled in public and private schools. This gap was largely explained by family background and school-related variables, including teachers’ qualification and student/teacher ratio. However, the performance of private schools was not uniform across districts. In some districts public schools performed even better than private and NGO schools. The findings of this study highlight the need for improving the quality of education in public schools by recruiting more qualified teachers and improving overall supervision. Teacher training is the area where the public and private sectors can benefit by pooling their resources and expertise.

Time Poverty, Work Status and Gender: The Case of Pakistan

The present study measures time poverty and its incidence across gender, occupational groups, industries, regions, and income levels using Time Use Survey (TUS) 2007, the first nationwide time use survey for Pakistan. In the entire TUS sample, the incidence of time poverty is 14 percent. Women are found to be more time poor than men whether employed or not. This is because of certain women-specific activities that they have to perform irrespective of their employment status. Working women are far more time poor than those not working.. Women accepting a job have to make a major trade-off between time poverty and monetary poverty. People working in professions and industries that generally require extended work hours and offer low wage rates are more time poor. This entails a situation of double jeopardy for workers who tend to be money and time poor at the same time. The close association of time poverty with low income found in this study corroborates this conclusion. Government can help reduce time poverty by enforcing minimum wage laws and mandatory ceiling on work hours in industries with high concentration of time poverty. Eradication of monetary poverty can also eliminate the need to work long hours at low wages just to survive. A fair distribution of responsibilities between men and women.is also needed. Keywords: Time Poverty, Gender Disparities, Time Use, SNA Activities, Time Use Survey, Pakista

Poverty, Gender, and Primary School Enrolment in Pakistan

Primary education is at the base of the pyramid of education, and is regarded as a fundamental human right today. In addition, it has several tangible social and economic effects. As an essential component of human capital, primary education plays an important role in the economic growth and development of a country.1 Its impact on several other socioeconomic variables has also been documented in the literature. To quote a few examples, Butt (1984) has found that five or more years of a farmer’s education lead to increased farm productivity, reduced use of farm labour, and increased use of yield augmenting inputs. Azhar (1988) also reports a significant relationship between the number of years of schooling and increase in farm output due to increased technical efficiency. Studies of the rates of returns to education attribute a positive value to the rate of returns to primary education.2 This means that by acquiring primary education one can increase one’s earnings. Every policy document prepared by the Government of Pakistan aims at attaining universal primary education. However, it is also true that each of these documents has advanced the date for achieving the target specified in the previous one. The net enrolment rates at the primary level show that we are still far from this target.

Production of Cognitive and Life Skills in Public, Private, and NGO Schools in Pakistan

The share of private and NGO schools in primary education has substantially increased over time, though the public sector is still a major player in this area. The present study analyses the factors determining the quality of education offered by the three types of schools and draws policy recommendations for improving primary education in Pakistan. The study compares learning achievement of Class 4 students enrolled in 50 public, private, and NGO schools located across six districts of Pakistan and in Azad Kashmir in terms of their scores in Mathematics, Urdu, and General Knowledge tests. The analysis shows that, practically, there is no gap between public and NGO schools in terms of the test scores of their students. However, a significant test score gap was found between the students enrolled in public and private schools. This gap was largely explained by family background and school-related variables, including teachers’ qualification and student/teacher ratio. However, the performance of private schools was not uniform across districts. In some districts public schools performed even better than private and NGO schools. The findings of this study highlight the need for improving the quality of education in public schools by recruiting more qualified teachers and improving overall supervision. Teacher training is the area where the public and private sectors can benefit by pooling their resources and expertise

Influence of Foreign TV Programs on Fashion, Lifestyle and Language of Youth

Culture is considered to be very closely related to media as different studies show that media shapes the culture and culture also influences the content of media. The cultural influence of dominant media has been recognized across the world. Media globalization has threatened the identity of nations. This study aims to explore the effects of foreign entertainment TV programs on culture particularly fashion, lifestyle and Urdu language in the youth of Pakistan. The sample of the study was taken from the university students of Islamabad and Rawalpindi. The findings of the study strongly support that proposition that foreign entertainment TV programs have deep influence on fashion, lifestyle and language of youth

Poverty, Gender, and Primary School Enrolment in Pakistan

Primary education is at the base of the pyramid of education, and is regarded as a fundamental human right today. In addition, it has several tangible social and economic effects. As an essential component of human capital, primary education plays an important role in the economic growth and development of a country.1 Its impact on several other socioeconomic variables has also been documented in the literature. To quote a few examples, Butt (1984) has found that five or more years of a farmer’s education lead to increased farm productivity, reduced use of farm labour, and increased use of yield augmenting inputs. Azhar (1988) also reports a significant relationship between the number of years of schooling and increase in farm output due to increased technical efficiency. Studies of the rates of returns to education attribute a positive value to the rate of returns to primary education.2 This means that by acquiring primary education one can increase one’s earnings

Natural convection in polyethylene glycol based molybdenum disulfide nanofluid with thermal radiation, chemical reaction and ramped wall temperature

© 2018 International Information and Engineering Technology Association. All Rights Reserved. The aim of this study is to investigate the unsteady magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) flow of Casson nanofluid over an infinite oscillating vertical plate with ramped wall temperature. The effects of porosity, thermal radiation and first order chemical reaction have been considered. Polyethylene glycol (PEG) is chosen as base fluid which contained molybdenum disulfide (MoS 2 ) nanoparticles. The Laplace transform technique is applied to the momentum, energy and concentration equations to obtain the closed form solutions. The obtained solutions are for both cases ramped and isothermal boundary conditions and compared graphically. From graphical analysis, it is observed that for isothermal plate, the magnitude of velocity, temperature and concentration profiles are greater than ramped wall temperature. Skin-friction, Nusselt number and Sherwood number are evaluated and presented in tabular forms. The effects of various embedded parameters on velocity, temperature and concentration profiles are discussed graphically

Informativeness of St14 VNTR Polymorphic Marker in the Carrier Detection of Hemophilia A

Hemophilia A is the most common hereditary severe disorder of blood clotting. In families affected with hemophilia, genetic analysis provides opportunities to prevent recurrence of the disease. This study establishes a diagnostic strategy for carrier-ship determination in Pakistani population using an extragenic polymorphic marker for the first time. The analysis of St14 VNTR (DXS52) was carried out by polymerase chain reaction (PCR), in order to determine its informativeness in terms of heterozygosity in Pakistani population. This may be a milestone for further analysis of other polymorphic markers for carrier detection and prenatal diagnosis of hemophilia. Seventy eight blood samples (Hemophiliac = 23, Normal = 55) from 15 families were analyzed for determining informativeness of St14 VNTR in carrier detection of hemophilia A. A total of nine alleles (2400, 2100, 1750, 1690, 1630, 1570, 1390, 1300, 1220 bp) was detected in the pool of subjects. 19 out of 40 females were found to be carriers with respect to the St14 VNTR polymorphic marker. The marker was informative in 73.33% of families. The expected heterozygosity rate of the St14 VNTR was 0.86 while the observed heterozygosity was 0.7. This shows that St14 VNTR is 70% informative in our population, allowing it to be a useful marker in carrier detection, as informativeness is the direct reflection of heterozygosity of a polymorphic marker

Functional outcome of anorectal malformations and associated anomalies in era of krickenbeck classification

Abstract OBJECTIVE: To describe the management and functional outcome of anorectal malformations and associated anomalies according to Krickenbeck classification. STUDY DESIGN: Case series. PLACE AND DURATION OF STUDY: The Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi, from January 2002 to December 2012. METHODOLOGY: Anorectal anomalies were classified according to Krickenbeck classification. Data was collected and proforma used regarding the primary disease associated anomalies, its management and functional outcome, according to Krickenbeck classification. Cases included were: all those children with imperforate anus managed during the study period. Qualitative variables like gender and functional outcome were reported as frequencies and percentages. Quantitative variables like age were reported as medians with interquartile ranges. RESULTS: There were 84 children in study group. Most common associated anomaly was cardiac (38%), followed by urological anomaly (33%). All children were treated by Posterior Sagittal Anorectoplasty (PSARP). Fistula was present in 64 out of 84 (76%) cases. The most common fistula was rectourethral (33%), followed by recto vestibular (31%). According to Krickenbeck classification, continence was achieved in 62% children; however 27% children were constipated, followed by 12% children having fecal soiling. CONCLUSION: Functional outcome of anorectal malformation depends upon severity of disease. A thorough evaluation of all infants with ARM should be done with particular focus on cardiovascular (38%) and genitourinary abnormalities (33%)

Focused abdominal sonography for trauma (FAST) in blunt paediatric abdominal trauma

Objective: To evaluate the role of focussed abdominal sonography for trauma in blunt paediatric abdominal trauma patients, and to see if the role of computed tomography scan could be limited to only those cases in which sonography was positive.Methods: The retrospective study covered 10 years, from January 1,2000 to December 31,2009, and was conducted at the Department of Radiology and Department of Emergency Medicine, Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi. It comprised cases of 174 children from birth to 14 years who had presented with blunt abdominal trauma and had focussed abdominal sonography for trauma done at the hospital. The findings were correlated with computed tomography scan of the abdomen and clinical follow-up. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value and accuracy of focussed abdominal sonography for trauma were calculated for blunt abdominal trauma. SPSS 17 was used for statistical analysis.Results: Of the total 174 cases, 31 (17.81%) were later confirmed by abdominal scan. Of these 31 children, sonography had been positive in 29 (93.54%) children. In 21 (67.74%) of the 31 children, sonograpy had been true positive; 8 (25%) (8/31) were false positive; and 2 (6%) (2/31) were false negative. There were 6 (19.3%) children in which sonography was positive and converted to laparotomy. There was no significant difference on account of gender (p\u3e0.356). Focussed abdominal sonography for trauma in the study had sensitivity of 91%, specificity of 95%, positive predictive value of 73%, and negative predictive value of 73% with accuracy of 94%. All patients who had negative sonography were discharged later, and had no complication on clinical follow-up.Conclusions: Focussed abdominal sonography for trauma is a fairly reliable mode to assess blunt abdominal trauma in children. It is a useful tool to pick high-grade solid and hollow viscous injury. The results suggest that the role of computed tomography scan can be limited to those cases in which focussed sonography is positive