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This policy review paper is an analysis of the Double Reduction Policy (DRP) of China that was promulgated in July 2021. It looks into its rationale as well as different stakeholders' early reactions to the policy.

Critical policy analysis (CPA) method was used to identify (1) the artefacts, such as language, objects and acts, that were significant carriers of the DRP; (2) communities of meaning, interpretation, speech and practice that are relevant to the DRP and its implementation; (3) the local discourses relevant to the DRP; and (4) the tension points and their conceptual sources (affective, cognitive and/or moral) by different DRP stakeholders. As per the comparative education field, this paper compares the pre-DRP and post-DRP periods to tease out how the policy affects different stakeholders of education.

The DRP in China could be attributed to diverse factors such as demography, socialist economic and developmental visions and manpower structure. The implementation of the DRP has generated uneven reactions among different stakeholders and geographical regions both in speed and scale. While education stakeholders have no choice but to adopt the policy, they face challenges derived from a sudden halt of private educational resources and subsequent increased duties of parents and schools.

The significance of this early policy analysis lies in offering an insight into education development in China by analysing and deliberating the DRP from different perspectives.

This research aims to determine the levels of education quality (EQ), technology usage (TU), students' satisfaction (SS) and the impact of EQ on SS. Also, it seeks to find out how TU as a moderator affects EQ and SS in Pakistani private higher education institutions (HEIs).

A total of 440 postgraduate students at eleven private universities in Lahore, Punjab Province, Pakistan, participated in empirical research and data were obtained through the use of an online questionnaire. Simple random sampling was used to choose participants and partial least square structural equation modeling was employed to analyze the data.

The findings revealed that Pakistani private HEIs have a medium level of EQ, TU and SS. Furthermore, the data reveal the existence of a significant positive relationship between EQ and SS, whereas TU as a moderator was found to negatively affect EQ and SS.

Postgraduate students of private HEIs in Pakistan were considered for this investigation and this study was limited to testing only in Punjab province. Another limitation of this study is that it was based on a research framework from previous research and literature. This study employed questionnaire surveys to conduct evaluations of teachers' teaching quality by university students. Furthermore, the questionnaire employed student self-evaluations to assess the quality of teaching. The research data would be more detailed if it were possible to include teachers' self-evaluations of their teaching quality.

The current study provides key insights for policymakers, higher education commission and HEIs. The results suggest leveraging the identified medium levels of EQ, TU and student satisfaction in Pakistani private HEIs. In an effort to boost the medium levels, policymakers are encouraged to enhance the teaching and learning experience by robustly integrating Web 4.0 technologies. Institutions can intervene strategically by investing in infrastructure and innovative tools aligned with students' technological needs. Likewise, policymakers and institutions can optimize learning management systems (LMS) by developing and implementing policies that encourage their adoption and optimization across HEIs. This may contribute to the accomplishment of the United Nations' sustainable development goal of providing quality education. Moreover, with the help of this research HEIs can establish minimum quality standards regarding academic teaching and learning materials. Implementing the above-mentioned practical implications might boost student satisfaction in HEIs which would benefit not only students but also the institutions.

The novelty of the article lies in the fact that it addresses the gap in the existing literature by exploring the levels of EQ, TU and student satisfaction in the context of private higher education in Pakistan. Furthermore, this study investigated whether TU served as a moderator in the relationship between student satisfaction and UNESCO-recommended EQ. This study elaborates on EQ indicators recommended by UNESCO in Pakistan’s private higher education sector.

Although there has been considerable growth in the higher education systems of Turkey and China in about the last two decades, there is still a room for development in enabling equity in all regions, increasing opportunities and resources regardless of socio-economic status or gender differences. Students coming from disadvantaged backgrounds do not have enough tools to change their fate for the better due to the accumulated barriers they face. Given this background, the chapter discusses how the barriers to equitable HE admissions relate to each other and which one has a greater negative impact over the Accumulated Conversion Barriers Modal we propose defined by personal, discriminatory, institutional, and geographical barriers. The perspectives of Turkish and Chinese HE stakeholders were examined through 21 in-depth interviews that were subjected to content analysis and interpreted in a comparative style using the lens of Capabilities Approach of Sen. We also offer policy suggestions to increase students’ conversion capacities for better outcomes to serve both the national and the international educational contexts owing to the adaptable nature of our modal to other countries experiencing similar issues in their higher education systems.

Municipalities have the potential to become models of the circular economy (CE). This paper aims to examine the impact of the municipal council’s characteristics on municipal CE disclosure and promotion.

This paper is based on the resource dependence and upper echelons theories. For a sample of the 100 largest cities in Canada, a mixed methodology is used to code and analyze data and test the hypotheses.

Municipal councillors’ education and experience related to the environment or sustainability are both likely to affect CE disclosure, and their sector membership (public or private) moderates the relationship between CE disclosure and councillors’ experience. This experience may be reinforced by membership in the private sector, which has applied CE principles more extensively than the public sector has. Municipal councils with a greater number of councillors from the private sector appear to perform better in matters of transparency and to disclose more CE information on their public websites.

Municipalities could use the findings to foster their transition to CE by implementing a CE-related training plan for their councillors. A CE-dedicated section on their websites could improve transparency and inform and educate residents about CE.

The public sector could learn from the private sector’s best practices regarding CE.

This paper contributes to the literature by providing empirical evidence of the transparency and engagement of municipalities toward CE. The authors extend the resource dependence and upper echelons theories to a new context, that of public organizations.

The paper examines the succession management strategies and the preparation level of heirs in the context of family-owned educational institutions in Nepal.

Sixteen in-depth, semi-structured interviews with the institution's leader were conducted. Each interview was transcribed using content analysis. Several themes and new items emerged that define the institutional strategies in succession management.

The paper provides insight into the challenges of implementing effective succession management strategies. The identified themes are traits, processes, challenging aspects and effective plans. The study's findings show the lack of awareness about the importance of succession planning among the institution owners due to the availability of limited resources. The paper also provides some insights into how family ownership and management are done and the lack of formal processes in succession management strategies.

This paper offers readers the chance to think about succession planning strategies. Also, it adds value in their critical analysis of the succession plan. The study advised the learners to consider additional elements that can impact succession planning, such as experience, educational requirements and their desire to work. It will aid researchers in considering the societal perspective of the successor, which is also a significant worry.

It focuses on a specific context, private schools in Nepal, and examines the challenges they face in implementing succession management strategies. The paper tries to identify the approach that may reveal potential solutions that have not been considered. The paper aims to clearly articulate the unique contributions of the study and explain how it advances the existing literature on succession management.

Although universities have been decentralized for academic freedom and autonomy, resources are being increasingly centralized, and the role of central administration is growing for efficiency and excellence reasons. At the same time, a division of labor is progressing by assigning specific tasks to professionals. The professionals are also centrally managed. Educational development was introduced by central administration to cope with the massification and quality assurance of higher education. Although it played a great part in promoting educational reform, it also suffered from the rejection of academics and the lack of methodology. Unlike ITC service and student service, educational development touches the autonomy of academics and is always torn between the central administration and academics. This chapter analyzes the structural and cultural difficulty of educational development in Japan by tracing its historical development and by comparing to other countries.

This chapter provides an in-depth examination of the quality assurance process in the higher education system of Iraq and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) in terms of standards, processes, and procedures. More specifically, the chapter aims to examine the impact of the quality assurance process on the quality development of education in Iraq and Kurdistan Region, as well as identify the challenges that staff (top management and faculty members) face at various higher education institutions therein. For this purpose, a qualitative/quantitative analysis was conducted, which involved reviewing existing official policies, reports, and forms; interviewing top officials (presidents, vice-presidents, quality assurance directors) at a few higher education institutions (public and private); and developing a survey questionnaire that detected the perspective of top officials and faculty members regarding the level of impact quality assurance has had on the development of higher education. A total of 284 university staff members were surveyed from different universities in Iraq and Kurdistan. A total of 29 universities from Iraq and Kurdistan were represented in the survey. The respondents came from a variety of colleges and departments at public and private universities, with 79% of respondents coming from public universities. Study results demonstrate that quality assurance has contributed significantly to the improvement of university staff performance. There are a number of recommendations made within this chapter for educational leaders, which could lead to the further development of quality practices and the upgrading of the higher education system.

This study aims to address the question of what coordination mechanism can be used for cultural production and, in particular, for the governance of music culture production. The authors locate their reflection within the specific institutional innovations introduced in Italy in 2017, focusing on the idea of shared administration and the public–private collaboration instituted in Trentino (a province located in northern Italy) in support of its cultural policy.

This study focusses on the Trentino’s music school system. This includes 13 organisations (musicians’ cooperatives as well as associations of musicians and students, plus one municipal school which do not overlap with the public school system). To analyse shared administration features, the authors rely on selected information from 50 interviews with Trentino Music Schools (TMS) teachers and administrators, and on the proceedings of the 1994 music school conference organised by the schools at the time when this novel educational system was created.

To offer an innovative educational service, the public actor (Provincia Autonoma di Trento [PAT]) and the schools (TMS) have developed a strong interdependence at the different levels of decision-making: PAT needs organisations that are sufficiently structured and organised to respect requirements of transparency and accountability, as well as educational standards, whereas TMS need public funding to maintain their service accessible for users, good labour conditions and be financially sustainable. Likewise, the success of TMS in educating thousands of students every year, including additional teaching programmes funded by PAT within general public schools, has contributed to decrease the exclusion from music education, raise interest in young people for music and fed enrolment in TMS as well as in the public schools related to the conservatoire filière. Conclusions emphasise the existence of a polycentric system of music culture production which needs to acknowledge the risk of being trapped in a static disequilibrium, while recognising change and the need to support and promote a culture of cooperation among schools and across layered institutional levels over time.

Further research can observe this system of cultural production over time, to appreciate changes and organisational tranformations, while introducing comparative analysis with other systems in different regions.

The relationship between the public and private sectors to design, organise and manage activities of collective interest (in the social, cultural, sporting and other fields) can increasingly become an effective and efficient alternative to the traditional bureaucratic as well as to the competitive method. For this to happen, however, all actors involved must be aware not only of areas of efficiency but also of inefficiency. To remedy the latter, corrective measures will have to be introduced. For example, fostering and improving “co-programmazione” and “co-progettazione” means giving all stakeholders involved the opportunity to actively participate. Should the number of participants increase, more discussion fora could be set up because one alone may not be sufficient to foster maximum involvement, to enhance different points of view, to allow for intersectoral and multidisciplinary interpretations and responses.

The system governance based on co-programming and co-design has allowed – despite limitations – to pursue educational purposes and thus well-being for the users, as well as for the teachers and the community as a whole. The continuity of this educational and cultural action has been guaranteed by the economic and financial sustainability of the schools, which is highly dependent on the public actor funding personnel costs, and in turn tied to the number of students (demand) attending each school. Actors embedded in the system need to build awareness of industry and cultural changes and knowledge of how to introduce more adaptive capacity. This points towards the need for strengthening networking capacity and collaboration among schools and other relevant stakeholders.

The case presented is a unique system of music culture production in Italy, and its governance has never been addressed by previous studies. It provides an application of shared administration to which public administrations and communities can learn to improve access to music culture and education. For public and private organisations to take advantage of the method of “co-programmazione” and “co-progettazione”, to make the production of a meritorious good more efficient and to favour its maximum accessibility, this study considers the strengths and weaknesses of this approach, or the areas of efficiency and inefficiency, for which new measures will have to be introduced.

Higher productivity in the potato value chain in Rwanda requires good quality seed potatoes. The article analyzes how innovations were introduced in the framework of a development project resulting in a partnership between a firm and two educational institutions to produce better seed potatoes, using the Triple Helix approach.

In the Triple Helix model government, academia and the private sector work together to develop and introduce innovations. This led to producing and introducing improved seed potatoes at an affordable price through a public private partnership (PPP). Interviews with experts and a survey of local producers were carried out to identify factors influencing the success of the partnership.

A Service, Training and Innovation Center (STIC) has been created to produce the first clean potato seeds in Africa on a commercial scale, based on cultivation of in vitro potato plantlets and aeroponics to produce mini-tubers. It is called Seed Potato Advancement Centre, an education–enterprise partnership, using these plantlets to produce mini-tubers through aeroponics. Seed multipliers are responsible for the next three stages of seed multiplication. The final product is the certified potato, sold to ware potato farmers. The availability of disease-free seed potatoes in Rwanda gives a boost to the potato value chains and contributes to food security. The partnership was successful because of the support from the government and donors, with the private sector and the extension services helping to implement the innovations effectively.

The limitation is that the number of experts interviewed is limited and the survey did not only deal with potato-related activities. The focus is on one region only, but the most important potato growing area in Rwanda.

STICs function as a tool for cooperation between government, private sector and the knowledge sector to achieve commercial and development goals. They function as a channel for technology transfer. They allow applied research, including agronomic research; information collection; and dissemination, networking, training, organization of outreach activities. The model can be repeated in other sectors and countries.

The paper looks at a PPP in agriculture with educational institutions. Second, the Triple Helix and value chain literature is used to study the introduction and implementation of appropriate innovations, while factors determining the success of the partnership were identified. This concerns the first production of clean seed potatoes in Africa on a commercial scale.

Open educational resources (OERs) are internet-based digital content that is used for academic purposes by instructors, students and researchers in the era of the information economy. Hence, this study aims to systematically review the literature, focusing on OERs’ benefits and challenges in the academic world.

The relevant literature systematically reviewed following the preferred reporting items for systematic literature reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. The pertinent literature was obtained from four main scholarly databases, and finally, 21 papers that met the inclusion criteria were included in this study.

The findings revealed that the key benefits of OERs include expanded access to knowledge, supporting lifelong learning, pedagogical benefits and enhancing students’ learning outcomes. However, the key challenges include lack of time to find appropriate resources, lack of awareness about the usage and copyrights, quality assurance and technological limitations and lack of organizational support.

The practical and policy implications highlight the joint venture of academia and library professionals to help the students evaluating OERs, quality assurance, copyright issues and lifelong learning.

Earlier studies missed few significant insights of OERs, such as they did not address the quality assurance of OERs; the issue of understanding of copy right (creative common license) challenges related with OERs; and lack of time for finding suitable resources. Hence, this study identified significance insights related with OERs.