Vocational Schooling, Labor Market Outcomes, and College Entry

This paper examines the differentiated outcomes of vocational and general secondary academic education, particularly in terms of employment opportunities, labor market earnings, and access to tertiary education in Indonesia. With data from a panel of two waves of the Indonesia Family Life Survey in 1997 and 2000, the paper tracks a cohort of high school students in 1997 to examine their schooling and employment status in 2000. The findings demonstrate that: (1) attendance at vocational secondary schools results in neither market advantage nor disadvantage in terms of employment opportunities and/or earnings premium; (2) attendance at vocational schools leads to significantly lower academic achievement as measured by national test scores; and (3) There is no stigma attached to attendance at vocational schools that results in a disadvantage in access to tertiary education; rather, it is the lower academic achievement associated with attendance at vocational school that lowers the likelihood of entering college. The empirical approach of this paper addresses two limitations of the existing literature in this area. First, it takes into account the observation censoring issue due to college entry when evaluating labor market outcomes of secondary school graduates. Second, using an instrumental variable approach, the paper also treats endogeneity of household choice of vocational versus academic track of secondary education, teasing out the net effect of secondary school choice on labor market and schooling outcomes.academic achievement; academic attainment; academic content; academic education; academic schools; access to higher education; access to tertiary education; catholic schools; classroom; classroom time

The economics of teacher supply in Indonesia

This paper examines the phenomenon of the over-supply of teachers but shortage of qualified teachers in Indonesia. Using a theoretical framework of government-dominated market with government-set wage rate and demand for teachers, the analysis explores how teacher supply, particularly the composition of the teaching force with low or high qualification, would be determined by current and future public policies. Using 2001 to 2008 Indonesian Labor Force Survey data, the paper further estimates the potential effect of the most recent teacher law, which could give college educated teachers a significant pay increase, on the composition of the Indonesian teaching force with differentiated education backgrounds. Using a sample of workers with college education, the author finds that the relative wage rate of teachers and that of alternative occupations significantly influence the decision of college educated workers to become teachers. It is also found that the wage rate set by the most recent teacher law would increase the share of teachers approximately from 16 to 30 percent of the college-educated labor force. This increase that is due to the new government-set wage rate, would result in a pupil-teacher ratio of 24 to 25 pupils per teacher with college education, but will require a more than 31 percent increase in the wage bill for teacher salaries. The empirical approach of this paper is derived from a structural model that takes into account the endogeneity of the wage rate and corrects for sample-selection bias due to occupational choice.Tertiary Education,Primary Education,Education For All,Teaching and Learning,Secondary Education

School-based management, school decision-making and education outcomes in Indonesian primary schools

This paper examines the key aspects of the practices of school-based management in Indonesia, and its effect on education quality. Using a conceptual framework of an accountability system of public service delivery, the paper explores the relations among Indonesian parents, school committees, schools, and government education supervisory bodies from three tenets: participation and voice; autonomy; and accountability. Using the data from a nationally representative survey of about 400 public primary schools in Indonesia, the paper finds that the level of parental participation and voice in school management is extremely low in Indonesia. While the role of school committees is still limited to community relations, school facilities, and other administrative areas of school management, school principals, together with teachers, are much more empowered to assert professional control of the schools. The accountability system has remained weak in Indonesia's school system, which is reflected by inadequate information flow to parents, as well as seemingly low parental awareness of the need to hold schools accountable. The accountability arrangement of the Indonesian school system currently puts more emphasis on top-down supervision and monitoring by government supervisory bodies. The findings show that although the scope of school-based management in Indonesia is limited, it has begun to help schools make the right decisions on allocation of resources and hiring additional (non-civil servant) teachers, and to create an enabling environment of learning, including increasing teacher attendance rates. These aspects are found to have significantly positive effects on student learning outcomes.Education For All,Tertiary Education,Primary Education,Teaching and Learning,Disability

Every group is the maximal subgroup of a naturally occurring free idempotent generated semigroup

Gray and Ruskuc have shown that any group G occurs as the maximal subgroup of some free idempotent generated semigroup IG(E) on a biordered set of idempotents E, thus resolving a long standing open question. Given the group G, they make a careful choice for E and use a certain amount of well developed machinery. Our aim here is to present a short and direct proof of the same result, moreover by using a naturally occuring biordered set. More specifically, for any free G-act F_n(G) of finite rank at least 3, we have that G is a maximal subgroup of IG(E) where E is the biordered set of idempotents of End F_n(G). Note that if G is finite then so is End F_n(G)

What are Some Retention Strategies that Sales Organizations in Various Industries Have Been Using to Retain Sales Reps Aside from Compensation?

[Excerpt] Management of sales organization views sales force retention as a critical objective. The total costs associated with the quit decision of a single salesperson (recruiting, training and opportunity costs of lost sales from unmanned positions) is in the $50,000-$75,000 range. Clearly, the adverse impact of salesforce turnover on both the profitability of the organization as well as the motivation level of the salesforce can be substantial. Therefore, it is urgent as well as crucial for sales organizations to develop retention strategies to incentivize sales representatives to stay with the company. The most crucial reason for voluntary turnover among salesforce is higher wages. Salary growth effects on turnover were greatest for high performers, that is, high salary growth significantly reduced turnover for high performing employees. However, besides salary, there are still a wide range of other strategies that companies can adopt to retain the salesforce