Vertical motions in the disk of NGC 5668 as seen with optical Fabry-Perot spectroscopy

We have observed the nearly face-on spiral galaxy NGC 5668 with the TAURUS II Fabry-Perot interferometer at the William Herschel Telescope using the $H\alpha$ line to study the kinematics of the ionized gas. From the extracted data cube we construct intensity, velocity and velocity dispersion maps. We calculate the rotation curve in the innermost 2 arcmin and we use the residual velocity field to look for regions with important vertical motions. By comparing the geometry of these regions in the residual velocity field with the geometry in the intensity and velocity dispersion maps we are able to select some regions which are very likely to be shells or chimneys in the disk. The geometry and size of these regions are very similar to the shells or chimneys detected in other galaxies by different means. Moreover, it is worth noting than this galaxy has been reported to have a population of neutral hydrogen high velocity clouds (Schulman et al. 1996) which, according to these observations, could have been originated by chimneys similar to those reported in this paper.Comment: 7 pages with 9 figures. LaTeX file using A&A v4.0 macro

The relative efficiency of public schools in developing countries

With the demand for schooling expected to increase and the tightening of fiscal constraints, changes will be necessary in order to meet ambitious educational targets. Instead of charging fees for public schools, a more cost-effective option is to rely on private schools to handle the growing demand for education. Private school students generally out perform public school students on standardized math and language tests. This finding takes into account that private school students usually come from slightly more advantaged backgrounds than their public school counterparts. In addition, school expenditure data show that unit costs for private schools are dramatically lower than those of public schools. The comparative advantage of private schools has important policy implications for public schools. Some efficiency gains can come from replicating the input mix of private schools. Also effective would be to mimic the organizational incentive structures of private schools.Teaching and Learning,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Gender and Education,Primary Education,Education Reform and Management

Does local financing make primary schools more efficient : the Philippine case

In the highly centralized system of the Philippines, local funding provides the only source of flexibility to meet specific and urgent needs. The government in Manila, which pays all teacher salaries, finds it easier politically in times of fiscal belt-tightening to cut recurrent costs. Although local funds are a relatively small percentage of the education budget, they make an important contribution to covering maintenence and operating costs. The total cost of education per student also appears to lower in schools with greater local financing. Administrators and teachers have greater incentive to be cost-effective when forced to consider the effect of their behavior on the people who live and work in the local community. The policy implications of these findings for the Philippines, as well as other developing countries, are important. They strongly suggest that decentralization will increase efficiency. Without an increase in local funding, the quality of primary education will suffer.Teaching and Learning,Gender and Education,Primary Education,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Business in Development

Student performance and school costs in the Philippines'high schools

A key consideration in the policy debate on the appropriate role of private schools in predominantly public school systems is cost effectiveness. The questions are: Do private school students learn more than their counterparts, and is it more or less expensive to educate students in private schools? Taking selectivity into account, the private schools show a significant edge over public schools in both English and Pilipino. Public schools, on the other hand, had a slight advantage in mathematics. A comparison of cost per student reveals a substantial advantage for private schools: public schools in the Philippines spend on average roughly twice as much as private schools. These findings strongly suggest that private schools are an efficient purveyor of secondary education in the formulation of policy measures that could threaten the existence of such schools.Teaching and Learning,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Gender and Education,Primary Education,Educational Sciences

School effects and costs for private and public schools in the Dominican Republic

Using statistical methods to adjust for a bias in selectivity, this paper analyzes the relative effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of public schools and two types of private schools - elite and non-elite - in the Dominican Republic. Controlling for selection, it found that students in eighth grade mathematics achieve more in both types of private school than they do in public schools, and achieve more in elite than in non-elite schools. Differences in teachers'backgrounds and teaching practices account for some of this difference in achievement, but differences in the students'peer background characteristics are substantially more important. Both types of private schools appear to be more cost-effective than public schools.Teaching and Learning,Primary Education,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Gender and Education,Education Reform and Management