Chapter 7 Diffusion of inclusive education in Malawi

This chapter discusses and analyzes the diffusion of the inclusive education concept as a norm of educational policy in developing countries by taking up primary school system in Malawi as a case. For the last two decades, international trends in education for pupils with disabilities have been shifting from “special” or “integrated” education to “inclusive education”. Inclusive education was originally launched through the Salamanca Statement, adopted at the World Conference on Special Needs Education in 1994. Adoption and widespread ratification of the 2006 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities provides the legal basis for this concept. Also, the SDGs, which embrace “inclusive” as a key term in the overarching Goal 4, significantly promote the diffusion of this concept in educational policies in both developed and developing countries. Our research is based on extensive fieldwork; seven classroom observations, 137 questionnaires and numerous interviews with key stakeholders including teachers, principals and parents. Based on this data analysis, the chapter discusses the complexity of diffusion of the norm of inclusive education from international to national, national to local, and suggests a more careful promotion of the new concept in educational practices, while fully acknowledging the achievement and potentials of inclusive education

Decentralization of the Financing and Administration of Public Secondary Schools in Thailand: A Case Study in Chiang Mai

The research ‘Decentralization of the Financing and Administration of Public Secondary Schools in Thailand: a Case Study in Chiang Mai’ aimed at investigating the current secondary education from financial and management perspectives with a case study of a school in Chiang Mai. The methodology for data collection consists of interviews and documentary research. Interviews were conducted on 1 Deputy Director of Finance Management and 4 teachers at Yupparaj School whom were key informants, and 2 Deputy Directors of Chiang Mai Education Service Area 34. Since the National Education Act in 1999 which emphasizes decentralization of education and financial management on a per-student basis, funding was allocated directly to Education Service Areas in the form of block grants and later on distributed to schools. The case of Yupparaj School which is a large well-known school in Chiang Mai Province is the case study for this research. In terms of financing, Yupparaj School as the large size school and reputation so the school receives a large amount of total government subsidies on education per student each year (THB 52 million in 2014). Another aspect is the school’s financial management in that the school is capable of finding external sources of funding i.e. donations, selling self-branded bottled water, letting food stalls, and managing its own Trust Fund, the school director, school administration committee and alumni association are crucial key factors for raising external funding. In terms of school administration, Yupparaj School as other schools in Thailand operate on the basis of school-based management, director of the school has a certain amount of authority in administration. A school needs to have a committee called school administrative committee which control the budget allocation to projects by each department. Moreover, the committee is responsible for finding external source of funding. Decentralization of financial policy is benefit for large size school and reputation, on the other hand, small schools, which have less students, do not have enough budgets to operate school efficiently.Group B: Quality of Education and Educational Polic

Identification of PLXDC1 and PLXDC2 as the transmembrane receptors for the multifunctional factor PEDF.

Pigment Epithelium Derived Factor (PEDF) is a secreted factor that has broad biological activities. It was first identified as a neurotrophic factor and later as the most potent natural antiangiogenic factor, a stem cell niche factor, and an inhibitor of cancer cell growth. Numerous animal models demonstrated its therapeutic value in treating blinding diseases and diverse cancer types. A long-standing challenge is to reveal how PEDF acts on its target cells and the identities of the cell-surface receptors responsible for its activities. Here we report the identification of transmembrane proteins PLXDC1 and PLXDC2 as cell-surface receptors for PEDF. Using distinct cellular models, we demonstrate their cell type-specific receptor activities through loss of function and gain of function studies. Our experiments suggest that PEDF receptors form homooligomers under basal conditions, and PEDF dissociates the homooligomer to activate the receptors. Mutations in the intracellular domain can have profound effects on receptor activities

“Good Practice to Improve Education” at Secondary School in Malawi: Focus on the Teachers’ Perspectives on Educational Problems and Views of Educational Values

This paper analyzed the field research resulted in “Good practice to improve secondary school” in Malawi. We conducted the field research at five secondary schools and asked teachers about their good implementations in the school. There are mainly 3 good implementations, which we exacted from field research’s results. First one is about utilizing PTA budged to improve quality of teaching. It is clear that some schools utilize the PTA budged for teachers who had good performance on quality of teaching, mainly based on students’ results on examination. The teachers are really encouraged to have reward and honored. Second one is about mutual aid activities. All of the target schools prepare common baskets for poor students. The target schools collected some stationaries and small money from the students, the teachers and community people and shared these things for students with tough conditions of learning. Last one is about fostering competitive culture in school. Most schools introduced the system, which is that high-performance students have priorities to have scholarships and good beds in their dormitory. The system encouraged them to compete to study among students. In the perspectives of pedagogy and long term, these good implementations could be recognized as bad practice. However, teachers utilize limited resources to improve quality of education as much as they can.本研究は科学研究費補助金（平成25－28年度　基盤研究B（一般））「途上国の前期中等教育における学校改善実践に関する国際比較研究」（研究代表者：吉田和浩）の成果の一部である

A Study of African International Students in Japan: Analyzing the Process of Their Destination Choice

This paper aims to examine the current situation of acceptance international students from African countries and clarify issues of Japanese strategy. In particular, this focuses on the process of selecting Japan as a study abroad destination, and analyze the issues of acquisition strategies for international students in Japanese context. Since 2008, a national strategy called ‘300000 Foreign Students Plan’ and ‘Tokyo International Conference on African Development’ have called for the need to accept African international students. Government has increased the number of scholarship programs for African students, in addition, they established the new scholarship programs only for African students known as ABE Initiatives. For this strategy, large amount of national budget has been contributed. Under these national strategy, African students are regarded as human resources expected to connect Japan and Africa. The study utilizes the data collected from 16 African international students interviews and questionnaires from 90 foreign students. In the findings, some students come to Japan without the academic information. In addition, some students used social media as their primary means of information gathering in their destination choice. From this result, it can be considered that the image before studying abroad have become increasingly diversified from the actual situation. In the findings, the interest in working in Japan or Japanese-overseas companies was also confirmed. It means some students have career awareness that could be a bridge between Japan and Africa. However, in Japan, little career support is available among the students. Whether they are willing to build a positive relationship with their countries and Japan or not, they are just accepted and leave with little interest in Japanese society. These results imply a microcosm of the superficial relationship in higher education between Japan and Africa. Some African students decide to study Japan due to vague image. In Japanese society, there is not much interest about African students, who can be highly talented personnel both for Japan and for Africa. Even the strategy has been promoted by a huge amount of national budget. It is required to reconsider, in what purpose Japan accept international students from Africa, and what each stakeholder can do for the improvement of higher education in Japan and Africa.本研究は、平成30年度学生支援の推進に資する調査研究事業「アフリカの留学生を支援する制度・課題に関する国際比較研究」（研究代表者：川口純）の一環として、日本学生支援機構より支援を受け、実施したものである

Assessment of inhibition with the Go/No-Go Task

Young, Sutherland, and McCoy indicated that a Go/No-Go Task (GNG) becomes more difficult as the inter-stimulus intervals (ISIs) becomes shorter. However, is the number of commission errors under extremely short ISIs a useful metric for assessing response inhibition? This study challenges the assumption that a shorter ISI in the GNG enables better assessment of response inhibition. University students (N = 213) completed the GNG, the Conners Continuous Performance Test 3rd Edition (CCPT), and the Modified Stroop Task. The GNG comprised four blocks of 400, 600, 800, and 1000 ms ISIs, whereas the stimulus presentation was fixed at 250 ms. Consistent with Young et al., shorter ISIs in the GNG resulted in more commission errors. In the block with the shortest ISI, participants also failed more frequently in responses in go trials than in the other blocks, which appears to increase in error variance of commission errors. Consistent with this interpretation, the association between the number of commission errors in the block with 400 ms ISI and CCPT performance was weaker than those between the number of commission errors in other blocks and CCPT performance. It is concluded that using the number of commission errors in the condition with extremely short ISIs in the GNG might be inappropriate for assessing response inhibition

Response inhibition deficits are positively associated with trait rumination, but attentional inhibition deficits are not : aggressive behaviors and interpersonal stressors as mediators

Previous findings on relationships between inhibition that is a core executive function, and trait rumination have been inconsistent. This inconsistency could be overcome by investigating the association between rumination and the two subcomponents of inhibition: response inhibition and attentional inhibition. This study examined whether and how response inhibition and attentional inhibition were related to rumination as well as worry. University students in Japan (N = 213) conducted the Go/No-Go Task and the Modified Stroop Task. They also completed self-report measures of depression, trait rumination, trait worry, stressors, and aggressive behaviors. Results indicated that response inhibition deficits were positively associated with trait rumination, and this association was mediated by increases in aggressive behaviors and interpersonal stressors. The associations between these variables remained significant even after controlling for depression level. There were no significant direct or indirect associations between attentional inhibition deficits and rumination. These results suggest that response inhibition deficits, among the subcomponents of inhibition, have an indirect positive association with rumination through interpersonal processes. Results also showed nonsignificant differences between rumination and worry in the magnitude of correlation coefficients with the two subcomponents of inhibition. Therefore, it remains unclear whether the positive association with response inhibition is unique to rumination

A dominant-negative FGF1 mutant (the R50E mutant) suppresses tumorigenesis and angiogenesis.

Fibroblast growth factor-1 (FGF1) and FGF2 play a critical role in angiogenesis, a formation of new blood vessels from existing blood vessels. Integrins are critically involved in FGF signaling through crosstalk. We previously reported that FGF1 directly binds to integrin αvβ3 and induces FGF receptor-1 (FGFR1)-FGF1-integrin αvβ3 ternary complex. We previously generated an integrin binding defective FGF1 mutant (Arg-50 to Glu, R50E). R50E is defective in inducing ternary complex formation, cell proliferation, and cell migration, and suppresses FGF signaling induced by WT FGF1 (a dominant-negative effect) in vitro. These findings suggest that FGFR and αvβ3 crosstalk through direct integrin binding to FGF, and that R50E acts as an antagonist to FGFR. We studied if R50E suppresses tumorigenesis and angiogenesis. Here we describe that R50E suppressed tumor growth in vivo while WT FGF1 enhanced it using cancer cells that stably express WT FGF1 or R50E. Since R50E did not affect proliferation of cancer cells in vitro, we hypothesized that R50E suppressed tumorigenesis indirectly through suppressing angiogenesis. We thus studied the effect of R50E on angiogenesis in several angiogenesis models. We found that excess R50E suppressed FGF1-induced migration and tube formation of endothelial cells, FGF1-induced angiogenesis in matrigel plug assays, and the outgrowth of cells in aorta ring assays. Excess R50E suppressed FGF1-induced angiogenesis in chick embryo chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) assays. Interestingly, excess R50E suppressed FGF2-induced angiogenesis in CAM assays as well, suggesting that R50E may uniquely suppress signaling from other members of the FGF family. Taken together, our results suggest that R50E suppresses angiogenesis induced by FGF1 or FGF2, and thereby indirectly suppresses tumorigenesis, in addition to its possible direct effect on tumor cell proliferation in vivo. We propose that R50E has potential as an anti-cancer and anti-angiogenesis therapeutic agent ("FGF1 decoy")