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The aim of the chapter is to develop some approaches to turn education, predetermining the quality of human capital, into the most important factor of national inclusive development. This problem is titled by the World Bank Report (2018) as “Learning: to realize education’s promise.” There has been revealed a fundamental contradiction between the two processes: the training technology is improved, the treasury of knowledge is enriched, the scientific progress accelerates, on one side, but on the other side, according to the international Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) study (2015), about 28% of the Russian 15-year-olds, for example, did not master the minimum necessary skills in at least one area of the three (natural science, mathematics, and communication in their native language). Meanwhile the correlation between educational and economic “failures” is high. Reduction in school failure in half (up to 15%) corresponds to the growth of the country’s GDP by 2% at the perspective of 10 years, by 5–6% – in 20 years, and by over 10% – in 30 years. The authors identify and substantiate the most important factor of the low basic knowledge of schoolchildren: it deals with the phenomenon of stable psychological and cognitive barriers in their minds. As a result of this theory, a model of educational consciousness has been developed, which makes it possible to overcome educational failure and to form algorithms for successful learning.

The purpose of this paper is to relate manifest market orientation to the achievement of electoral objectives.

The paper presents an analysis of advertising content against a framework of criteria drawn from key marketing concepts using examples from recent New Zealand general elections.

There is a relationship between parties demonstrating a strong voter orientation in their political advertisements and achievement of electoral success. By viewing advertising as a symptom of parties' broader market orientation, the political marketing factors that differentiate the “winner/s” from the others in an election campaign may be uncovered.

The framework has only been applied to New Zealand Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) election campaigns. To make a more concrete connection between demonstration of market orientation and electoral success the framework needs to be tested in more than one electoral system, in more than one country.

The paper reveals a useful way to relate political advertising content to electoral outcome.

This framework has not been used before in the political advertising or political marketing fields. It strengthens the utility of political marketing explanations in relation to voter‐ and media‐generated explanations of election outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a selection of papers on such subjects as: increased application of marketing to modern politics; the perceptions of its effectiveness – particularly in closely contested elections; the escalation in funding of campaigns; and the increase in international collaboration.

There has been a marked increase in the quantity and quality of research since the first EJM special issue in 1996. Political marketing is now in the mainstream of research in marketing. The themes in the earlier special issues are tabulated to provide a comparison with those in this issue. The contributions in each paper are summarised.

The paper reveals key issues for research. One is the rapid rise in influence of the internet in the political sphere, particularly in blogging and social networking, although it presents major methodological challenges. There is also a need for more studies crossing cultures and electoral systems and empirical work to establish a firm basis for key constructs and relate those to voter attitudes and behaviour.

Drawing on a number of these papers, key issues for research in political marketing going forward are identified.

The purpose of this study is to draw on multiple streams analysis (MSA) and to investigate how policy change emerged from two inquiries into allegations of abusive hospital care in National Health Service (NHS) hospitals in the United Kingdom (UK) in the 1960s.

The methodology of this study is regarding a historical case study of two inquiries.

The Sans Everything and Ely inquiries had the same legal standing and terms of reference, but the second put psychiatric hospital reform on the agenda, while the first did not. The main factor making Ely rather than Sans Everything the turning point seems to have been concerned with “agency”, linked with a few key individuals.

A study of 1960s event necessarily relies heavily on documentary and archival sources, and cannot draw on interviews which are an important ingredient of many case studies.

The originality of the study is to examines inquiries, which have been largely neglected in MSA, despite their obvious potential role in placing issues on the agenda. Previous studies of MSA have devoted little attention to the ability of the media to provide the focus on “focusing events”.

Within teacher education, many experienced in-service teachers routinely mentor pre-service teachers during teaching practicums. Notwithstanding the benefits pre-service teachers are meant to experience from these mentor–protégé relationships and experiences, recent research has demonstrated that mentors, too, may experience some (oftentimes unintended) potential benefits. The purpose of this paper is to further investigate such potential benefits within a Canadian secondary school physical education (PE) context.

The researchers employed a qualitative case study methodology. The three primary data sources included field observations/notes, journals and interviews. More specifically, over a ten-week period, the researchers made 26 field visits, observing two mentors’ interactions with five protégés before, during, and after PE class instruction; collected the two mentors’ ten journal entries, all made in response to researcher-provided writing prompts; and interviewed the two mentors, both individually and together.

The mentor teachers viewed the mentor–protégé relationship/experience as meaningful professional development, recognizing that it approximated a professional learning community. Relatedly, the mentor teachers experienced professional growth with respect to their own teaching identity and teaching practice.

This research could inform those who structure and/or coordinate mentoring research within teacher education programs so that they might place a more purposeful focus upon the potential and/or idealized outcomes for mentors (as well as for protégés). Given the single case study methodology, this research may lack generalizability to other educational contexts.

This research adds to the emerging body of research that investigates how mentoring may provide benefits to mentors. More specifically, this research suggests benefits to mentors relate, especially, to their own teaching identity and practice.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relative merits of thesis consultation with a librarian prior to graduate submission and to explore whether thesis consultation has a significant impact on the quality of the theses submitted by postgraduate students.

This study uses a quantitative case study approach. The total number of thesis scrutiny reports written by librarians between 2009 and 2014 has been reviewed for errors found in theses. Errors have been classified as referencing errors and formatting errors. These have been compiled in a spreadsheet and analyzed using the SPSS statistical package.

This paper highlights that thesis consultation has had a positive impact on the quality of the theses students submitted for examination at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus. Thesis consultation with a strong focus on referencing clearly assisted students learning and applying different citation styles. There was a decrease in the number of referencing errors over time. Not much difference was seen in terms of formatting errors. Further tests showed that there was a statistically significant positive relationship between thesis consultation and the number of referencing errors made by graduate students.

This study may have implications for the engagement of academic libraries with their graduate communities. With thesis consultation, a librarian may scrutinize the same thesis more than once. Although this may increase the workload of librarians, thesis consultation/scrutiny will have a positive impact on the quality of research produced by graduate students.

This study shows that students benefited from thesis consultation and there was a significant reduction in citation errors. In reviewing the literature, it has been noted that research done in the area of thesis consultation was very limited; hence, this study significantly contributes to the body of knowledge that presently exists.

Prisons in Africa face unprecedented challenges during Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). In July 2020, the first prison system case of COVID-19 was notified in Zimbabwe. Subsequently, the Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services released their COVID-19 operational plan. The purpose of the study was to assess preparedness, prevention and control of COVID-19 in selected prisons in Zimbabwe.

A multi-method situation assessment of COVID-19 preparedness was conducted across three Zimbabwean prisons. The World Health Organization checklist to evaluate preparedness, prevention and control of COVID-19 in prisons was administered to frontline health managers. Information garnered was further explored during site observation and in multi-stakeholder key informant interviews with policymakers, prison health directorate, frontline health-care professionals, officers in charge and non-governmental organizations (n = 26); focus group discussions with correctional officers (n = 18); and male/female prisoners (n = 36). Data was triangulated and analyzed using content thematic analysis.

Outdated infrastructure, severe congestion, interrupted water supply and inadequate hygiene and sanitation were conducive to ill-health and spread of disease. Health professionals had been well-trained regarding COVID-19 disease control measures. COVID-19 awareness among prisoners was generally adequate. There was no routine COVID-19 testing in place, beyond thermo scanning. Access to health care was good, but standards were hindered by inadequate medicines and personnel protective equipment supply. Isolation measures were compromised by accommodation capacity issues. Flow of prison entries constituted a transmission risk. Social distancing was impossible during meals and at night.

This unique situation assessment of Zimbabwean prisons’ preparedness and approach to tackling COVID-19 acknowledges state and prison efforts to protect prisoners and staff, despite infrastructural constraints and inadequate resourcing from government.