In the present study, the author examines how the lack of funding can impact the administration and the organisational efficiency of technical vocational education and training (TVET) institutions (I). The research examines human capital development and TVET as instruments for propelling growth and development and contributing to Trinidad and…

Using longitudinal data of college graduates in Colombia, we estimate labor market returns to postsecondary degrees and to various skills--including literacy, numeracy, foreign language, and field-specific skills. Graduates of academic programs and schools of higher reputation obtain higher earnings relative to vocational public programs. A one…

Economists have long recognized the importance of human capital in economic growth. In this series of papers, I study how various institutions of human capital formation affected economic development in a variety of contexts prior to 1900. These include both formal institutions of human capital formation such as universities and informal…

Research suggests teachers' observable characteristics are inequitably distributed across schools, leaving minoritized students with less exposure to experienced and credentialed teachers. While prior research focuses on how the teacher sorting explains disparities in students' test scores, little research explores how teacher quality gaps might…

Government-sponsored student loans have emerged over the decades as a primary method of financing post-secondary education across most North American jurisdictions. Despite this, the empirical literature examining the correlates of repayment difficulty and default in Canada has remained stagnant in recent years. This study taps into an…

This study examined the longitudinal persistence behavior of first-time, nontraditionally aged students at four-year institutions by leveraging the 2004 to 2009 Beginning Postsecondary Student data set. A human capital theory framework was employed to assess how student background characteristics, enrollment characteristics, and financial factors…

Using cross-sectional data, collected via a survey from the Greek healthcare sector, we estimate both the private (direct) and public/social (indirect) returns to education from an increase in an employee's educational level. By utilising a spatial econometrics approach, we control for the aggregation problems that plague the majority of the…

This article reports on a study investigating the link between education and work. Instead of looking at the labour outcomes of graduates, the study examined the qualifications held by workers in technician- and professional-level jobs from three types of occupational fields: regulated, applied, and general. The approach shifts the focus away from…

The middle-income trap (MIT) refers to the state that middle-income economies have found it challenging to upgrade to reach the high-income stage over an extended period. Overcoming the MIT has long been discussed as an important social issue, notably in Southeast Asia. One major problem in addressing the MIT is directly linked to fewer job…

The historical literature about postsecondary education in British Columbia, as in many jurisdictions, is fragmented. Scholarly works have tended to recount the development of a single institution or a single sector: colleges and universities, vocational colleges, apprenticeship, or continuing education. And not all sectors, whether comprised of…

Rural America has long been perceived as "left behind" by policies that leave it struggling while benefiting bustling urban cities and suburbs. That narrative holds some truth: rural America has a declining population, along with lower educational attainment and lower workforce participation than urban America. But while rural America…

Links between Qatar's labor market and post-secondary education are not fully effective and often result in neglected or duplicated development of human capital. Therefore, most development efforts occur in isolation involving outmoded programs with many complacent faculty unaware of new technologies and developments relevant to labor market…

We examine how workers invest in human capital following unanticipated local labor market downturns. We find that, on average, two-year college enrollment increases by three students within three years for every one hundred workers laid off. This rise in enrollment accounts for half the observed increase in labor force nonparticipation following…

Building the Right Skills for Human Capital summarizes the findings from the 2019 skills survey for the adult Kyrgyz population. The skills measures used in the survey focused on literacy, numeracy, and problem solving in technology rich environments (PSTRE) and followed the same questions and approach as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation…

In this dissertation, I use data from Chile to study the determinants of schooling trajectories. Chapters 1 and 2 focus on higher education, Chapter 3 on secondary education, and Chapter 4 on teachers. Chapter 1 explores the role of a socio-emotional ability, self-efficacy, in understanding why students with comparable qualifications transit…