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This paper aims to identify the factors affecting the implementation of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) in the education sector.

Based on Scopus and adopting the protocol of Staples and Niazi (2007), this systematic literature review examined 21 articles on PPPs in the education sector. Content analysis is adopted to identify research gaps and provide information on critical issues in the cases.

The findings have identified the critical success factors of PPPs in the education sector in 12 countries, revealing varying degrees of success and implementation challenges. They reflect the importance of clear objectives, effective communication, and robust partnerships between the public and private sectors to achieve success. These insights contribute to an in-depth understanding of PPP implementation in education, which can guide future projects.

The critical success factors identified in PPPs implementation in education across various countries may provide a comprehensive worldwide perspective for researchers, practitioners and policymakers.

The variance between the winning bid and the owner's estimated cost (OEC) is one of the construction management risks in the pre-tendering phase. The study aims to enhance the quality of the owner's estimation for predicting precisely the contract cost at the pre-tendering phase and avoiding future issues that arise through the construction phase.

This paper integrated artificial neural networks (ANN), deep neural networks (DNN) and time series (TS) techniques to estimate the ratio of a low bid to the OEC (R) for different size contracts and three types of contracts (building, electric and mechanic) accurately based on 94 contracts from King Saud University. The ANN and DNN models were evaluated using mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), mean sum square error (MSSE) and root mean sums square error (RMSSE).

The main finding is that the ANN provides high accuracy with MAPE, MSSE and RMSSE a 2.94%, 0.0015 and 0.039, respectively. The DNN's precision was high, with an RMSSE of 0.15 on average.

The owner and consultant are expected to use the study's findings to create more accuracy of the owner's estimate and decrease the difference between the owner's estimate and the lowest submitted offer for better decision-making.

This study fills the knowledge gap by developing an ANN model to handle missing TS data and forecasting the difference between a low bid and an OEC at the pre-tendering phase.

To examine the perspective of third-level university students in the context of the value proposition of construction apprenticeships in Ireland.

The research uses a qualitative method, conducting semi-structured interviews with 20 third-level university students enrolled on a Bachelor of Science (Honours) degree program in Construction Management in Ireland.

The results highlight six themes. These include that society appears to be directly and/or indirectly steering students towards university. This is driven by what appears to be a prevailing stigma in that apprenticeships are not seen as an achievement by society. Also, apprenticeships are seen as a limited career choice, while also being one which appears to repel female entrants.

If the shortage of new skilled workers entering the construction industry continues, construction organisations will not have the necessary resources to tender for, and subsequently, complete new work.

The perception of what could have been seen as potential new apprenticeship entrants, but ultimately chose university, is worth examining further with a view to industry addressing the shortcomings identified. This therefore can provide an opportunity to stem the tide of reducing apprenticeship numbers, while also providing a viable alternative to university for those who wish to pursue alternative routes of entering the sector.

The paper uniquely focuses on the third-level university student's perspectives and what influenced their decision to pursue third-level university education over that of an apprenticeship within the built environment; an area which has yet to be investigated.

This study aims to investigate how highly ranked business schools portray ideal students in terms of their attributes and their agency. Understanding how these higher education institutions (HEIs) discursively construct their present and prospective students also shed light on the institutions’ self-representation, the portrayal of the student–institution relationship and eventually the discursive construction of higher education’s (HE) role.

To understand this dynamic interrelationship, this study uses mixed methodological textual analysis first quantitatively identifying different modes of language use and then qualitatively analysing them.

With this approach, this study identified six language use groups. While the portrayal of the business schools and that of the students are always co-constructed, these groups differ in the extent of student and organisational agency displayed as well as the role and purpose of the institution. Business schools are always active agents in these discourses, but their roles and the students’ agency vary greatly across these six groups.

These findings can help practitioners determine how students are currently portrayed in their organisational texts, how their peers and competitors talk and where they want to position themselves in relation to them.

Previous studies discussed the ideal HE students from the perspective of the students or their educators. Other analyses on HE discourse focused on HEIs’ discursive construction and social role This study, however, unveils how the highly ranked business schools in their external organisational communication discursively construct their ideals and expectations for both their students and the general public.

The purpose of the study is to explore the dominant ideas in research on the management of time in construction. The focus of research has been to improve techniques for optimising the timing and sequence of activities.

A critical review of research on construction time management, challenging the typical focus. We examine the assumptions different authors make, underline the limitations of the dominant research approaches and examine the prospects for developing a new approach to researching these issues.

The dominant approach in literature focuses on unique activity traits in construction planning and measurable patterns between time-related variables. This assumes that time in construction can be managed by changing the way activities are calculated. These approaches have not been correlated with improvement in performance. Social practice theory may help to explain how programmes figure as one of many objects used during construction.

The focus is on reviewing indicative literature from key journals in construction management. The implication is that research is needed about how such documents are used in practice, which goes further than optimising plans in theory.

Future research could focus on understanding the context of construction planning practice and shift the debate from a focus on optimisation to practice.

An interpretivist approach with a focus on how tools such as planning documents are used on site. Social practice theory may provide a clearer explanation of the place of construction planning within the practice of construction management. This could provide solutions that deal effectively with stakeholder expectations around timely completion of construction projects.