Learning the hard way: the effect of violent conflict on student academic achievement

We study the effect of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict on various education outcomes for Palestinian high school students in the West Bank during the Second Intifada (2000–2006). Exploiting within-school variation in the number of conflict-related Palestinian fatalities during the academic year, we show that the conflict reduces the probability of passing the final exam, the total test score, and the probability of being admitted to university. The effect of conflict varies with the type and the timing of the violent events the student is exposed to and it is not significant for students in the upper tail of the test score distribution. We discuss various possible transmission mechanisms explaining our main result. Evidence suggests a role for both the conflict-induced deterioration of school infrastructures and the worsening in the student's psychological well-being due to direct exposure to violent events

Food security and vocational education and training: exploring the links in the Egyptian case

Food security has always been on the top of political and economic agendas in developing countries. In Egypt, the problem is becoming increasingly challenging given the political and economic circumstances the country is going through, particularly in the past few years, in addition to the relatively high increases in population growth and poverty levels. The problem has been investigated from different perspectives; mainly economic and political. However, the links between vocational education and training (VET) and the current problem of food security have been given less attention by policy makers and academics, equally. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the relationship between the problem of food security and the (in)effectiveness of VET in Egypt. Such connection would improve understanding of the problem of food insecurity, inform policy makers on development strategies in agricultural VET to potentially contribute to food security and contribute to the body of knowledge in this field