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Private supplementary tutoring is expanding fast around the world. Recognising that examination boards are major shapers of curricular load, the purpose of this paper is to identify the roles of examination boards at Grades 8, 9 and 10 in Bengaluru, India. Two boards were chosen, with one having a heavier perceived curricular load than the other.

The study used mixed methods with a questionnaire survey of 687 students in Grades 8, 9 and 10, and 51 face-to-face, semi-structured interviews.

Perhaps surprisingly, the findings did not reveal significant differences in tutoring demand by students. Both groups viewed the board examinations as having high stakes, and accordingly invested in extensive private tutoring. Competition emanating from credentialism was the main driver of the decision to receive tutoring among both cohorts.

Although previous studies have explored various components of demand for tutoring, to the authors’ knowledge, this is the first to explore the impact of examination boards on demand for tutoring. Since the system of schools being affiliated to examination boards is common not only in India but also in many other countries, the study has broad international relevance.

This paper is an examination of residues on printed wiring boards and printed wiring assemblies. Sources of residues are illustrated and the effects of various residues are discussed. Case studies are presented for bare board cleanliness issues, water soluble flux and aqueous cleaning processes, and low solids flux (no‐clean) processes, with and without cleaning. The case studies reflect lessons learned in various process troubleshooting efforts. Residues in this paper were characterized using advanced ion chromatography procedures. In addition, some data on surface insulation resistance (SIR) are presented.

The government has taken an initiative to improve the MBBS admission process in the country to eradicate the academic dishonesty and encourage the deserving candidates for MBBS enrolment. The Supreme Court has paved the way to hold the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET), a common entrance test for admission to undergraduate and postgraduate medical courses, from the 2016-17 academic year onwards. This paper aims to focus on the contention raised by various stakeholders associated with it and examines the pass percentage of plus two State Board examinations in 2015, 2016 and 2017 and admission details for 2016 and 2017.

The researchers adopted exploratory research. The researchers studied the medical admission process at national and global levels. They collected data of MBBS admission, NEET, State Board and CBSE plus two results and information from newspapers, website and magazine articles. Many experts published articles in newspapers. No study analysed data and made an exhaustive exploratory study. This motivates the researcher to do the same. Simple percentage, percentage change, correlation analysis and the sign test are used to determine whether the State Board or CBSE students get benefitted out of NEET to become medical professionals.

There is no significant relationship between MBBS enrolment of students (both State Board and CBSE students) before and after the NEET was introduced. From correlation analysis, it is inferred that the pass percentage of students who studied under State Board and MBBS enrolment were lesser in 2017 than 2016. It is also inferred that many districts students’ enrolment in MBBS course have increased from 2016 to 2017. The researchers concluded that because of NEET, CBSE students got more enrolment in MBBS course in 2017 compared with State Board students in 2016.

The researchers found that the students with State Board examinations enrolled in lesser number for MBBS course than CBSE students in Tamil Nadu. There is a scope for improvement in designing and implementing NEET with the deliberations among different stakeholders involved with the medical education system, which will help in reducing the rampant corruption and, most importantly, pave the way for a selection based on merit in medical education. Possibly, this will also work as a safeguard to the sanctity of the medical profession in India and at the global level.

The researcher collected data from newspapers, websites and journals. Many experts discuss about, for and against NEET. No one analysed the data. This is a unique article that has more statistical analysis and meaningful interpretations from analysis. This paper will be useful to the government at national and global levels to frame medical admission procedure and policies.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between corporate governance and earnings management in US context and provide further insights on the effects of board of directors' characteristics on earnings management.

The paper uses a sample of three groups of US firms; where firms with relatively high negative, firms with relatively high positive, and those with low levels of discretionary accruals in the year 2004 are examined. Descriptive statistics, univariate analysis, multivariate analysis, board of directors' characteristics, and possible relationships between corporate governance variables and earnings management proxy provide the basis for discussion.

Firms with annually elected boards, small size boards, 100 percent independent nominating committees, and 100 percent independent compensation committees have more negative discretionary accruals. However, firms with 75‐90 percent independent board or firms with a board size of between nine and 12 have higher positive discretionary accruals.

Certain board characteristics may be the important factors associated with constraining the propensity of managers to engage in earnings management.

Results are limited by the accuracy of the models applied to isolate discretionary accruals. Additionally, the direction diverse of discretionary accruals may differ with selecting a time series of three or more years as a base for the analysis.

In contrast to prior literature, where board composition is defined as an insiders‐ or outsiders‐controlled board, this paper classifies board composition into seven discrete categories, using the same seven categories employed by Institutional Shareholder Services in evaluating and assigning corporate governance quotient scores to firms. The paper's major contributions to the existing literature are its findings that income‐increasing and income‐decreasing discretionary accruals have a different relationship with corporate governance practices and its expansion of the scope of corporate governance from board independence and audit committee independence to other corporate governance characteristics. This paper provides evidence that supports US regulators' initiatives that stronger corporate governance mechanisms provide greater monitoring of the financial accounting process and may be the important factors in improving the integrity of financial reporting.

Past literature on board research has centred on board structure and firm performance. Since empirical studies do not reveal a conclusive relationship between the two, attention has shifted towards board role performance. This paper aims to investigate this issue.

The paper examines three conceptual models for the studying of board role performance: structure, process, and mediation.

Current literature provides little consensus as to the specific configuration for effective board role performance.

First, the study examines various aspects of board role performance. This is in contrast with previous research which largely investigates board role performance in general or under the dominant agency perspective which emphasises the board's monitoring role. Second, unlike traditional governance models, the role of board process is explicitly advocated here. Third, the three conceptual models regarding the relationship among board structure, process and performance give an alternative avenue for researchers to explain inconsistencies in past board research. They complement the growing interest in opening up the “black‐box” of decision making that has been manifested in studies involving top management teams.

Electroloid Limited, the Aylesbury based manufacturer of metal finishing plant and equipment, have announced two new appointments to their sales and marketing team.

The Commons have approved without a division the following Motion, moved by Mr Charles Curran (Cons, Uxbridge): ‘That this House, recognising the social consequences that follow when automation increases production by using a smaller labour force and when people below a minimum standard of ability and education may consequently find it hard to obtain employment, calls on the Government to state their policy for improving still further the educational facilities provided for less gifted children who may otherwise be excluded from an automated labour market.’

This paper aims to understand the emerging state of online counseling practices in India, highlight the benefits of process transition and explore potential research issues in this domain. Changing demands of labor market and growing availability of wide range of education and training options in the higher/technical education sector underscore the need of counseling services for an individual’s career guidance requirements. “Online counseling” in this context, as an e-government intervention, is expected to meet this requirement by extending support to individuals’ decision-making process and optimally match their interest with appropriate kind of education.

The authors have highlighted some key contributions from the literature to build theoretical insight about contextual factors of counseling, and presented a detailed case analysis of online counseling practices in one of the states of India.

With a critical perspective, it is noticed that design of online counseling services in India has largely been developed from the requirements of service provider’s to support the conventional set of practices, with less attention given to students’ decision support. More research is required in the direction of service gap analysis, information quality issues and more interactive website functionalities from user’s viewpoint.

Aligning the objectives of online counseling services with the relevant theories of career guidance should essentially be considered by the government/online counseling managers. Furthermore, managers must understand the importance of information quality and self-help tools for online information accessibility to facilitate student’s decision-making process.

The article reports a research scenario/case of a unique service of its kind under the education sector in India which is weighted high on both the dimensions – technical/operational elements, because of multiple stakeholders’ involvement, and informational service elements, as viewed through e-government service maturity research lens.

A university of medical sciences (UMS) is governed by a board that serves analogously as a board of trustees or a governing board in the western countries. In Iran, however, such boards operate under the broad leadership of the Ministry of Health and Medical Education (MoHME) but still wield enormous power over their universities. Given the influence boards have in the affairs of an UMS, the question remains how the medical university board can be improved so as to improve the overall effectiveness of these institutions. The purpose of this article is a response to this question by focusing on criteria necessary for reviewing board performance.

Using a qualitative approach, the study solicited data from 37 key informants that were purposefully chosen from 52 medical science universities across Iran. Semi-structured face-to-face and phone interviews as well as a review of relevant document were the main means of the data gathering. We performed the framework analysis using software ATLAS-ti (version 5).

The analysis identified 32 overlapping indicators that must be considered in a board performance. These indicators were reclassified and summarized into six categories, including trustees, trustees' leadership, board structure, board process, board output (short-length results) and board outcomes (long-length results).

Our study findings confirmed the role of the context and its relationship with the effective board performance. Here, the governing arrangement of all institutions including UMS is shadowed by the social, economic, cultural, political and technological status of the country. So, special attention is recommended to identify what should be considered to evaluate the performance of the board given the context.

The purpose of this paper is to trace the establishment of area schools from two vantage points. The first vantage point is those who were legislatively responsible for public education in South Australia from the mid 1930s through to the end of World War 2. The second is the local community, with references to Karoonda (and districts) in particular.

The paper locates the evolution of area schools in the comprehensive public secondary schooling movement and the practice of borrowing policy initiatives from overseas and other education jurisdictions. Primary source documents have been used extensively throughout the article.

Initial resistance to the closure of small schools to form area schools was overcome by the provision of free bus transport, and the wider availability of secondary education, locally. Originally intended to provide instruction to students who would remain for most of their lives in rural communities, within ten years of opening, area schools became the means of mobility for many.

The continuing exodus of youth from rural areas in search of “greener pastures” has become one of the main issues confronting rural communities as they search for ways to maintain viability in a competitive, market driven economy.

The paper is a rigorously documented historical contribution towards debate and discussion about how governments, and others, may ensure access to secondary education in rural areas in light of demographic and economic factors.