Following the end of the Lebanese civil war, education was put forward as a major means for rebuilding Lebanon and promoting social cohesion and unity. A huge education development plan was launched in 1994 culminating in a new national curriculum in 1997 and the production of new textbooks. Although the quality of education improved in public…

This Cedefop study examines the contribution that vocational education and training (VET) can make to reducing early leaving from education and training (ELET). Published in two volumes, this first looks at quantitative data to understand better the extent of early leaving from VET (ELVET). It analyses mechanisms for monitoring early leaving (at…

This article reports on the development and implementation of the Student Success Program, a strategic, University-wide, consistent approach to increasing the success and retention of first year students, during 2014. To this end, a centrally coordinated process integrated historic student, application, enrolment, academic performance and learning…

College-for-all has become the new American dream. Most high school students today express a desire to attend college, and 90 percent of on-time high school graduates enroll in higher education in the eight years following high school. Yet, degree completion rates remain low for nontraditional students--students who are older, low-income, or have…

In 2014-15, the high school graduation rate reached a record high of 83 percent (U.S. Department of Education 2016). Despite the gains, over half a million students still drop out of high school each year (U.S. Department of Education 2015). High schools have adopted various strategies designed to keep students who are at risk of not graduating in…

Nearly half of students who drop out do so as a result of adverse conditions in the school, while 37% of dropouts are pulled out of school by challenges like financial worries, family needs, or employment. Only 14% of dropouts did so for reasons that can be described as failing out of school due to a lack of interest or academic progress (Doll,…

Colleges and employers are demanding greater knowledge and skills from our graduates than ever before. As Ohio continues to help students in meeting higher expectations for what they should know and be able to do, student achievement is higher statewide. From 2016 to 2017, every subject area had an increase in first-time test takers scoring…

American schools are failing to meet the expectations of a wide swath of students, many of them in low-income and rural communities. What's needed is a new pact putting their expectations at its center. The article is based on the authors' book: "Leaving to Learn: How Out-of-School Learning Increases Student Engagement and Reduces…

The Houston Independent School District (HISD) first instituted the Wraparound Services during the 2016-2017 school year as a school-based approach to providing non-academic services to students, which was guided by a 2017 consultation report by the Boston Consulting Group. The expectation was that the provision of non-academic services would…

In this paper we present an Agent-based evaluation approach in a context of Multi-agent simulation learning systems. Our evaluation model is based on a two stage assessment approach: (1) a Distributed skill evaluation combining agents and fuzzy sets theory; and (2) a Negotiation based evaluation of students' performance during a training…

Educators at all levels care deeply about helping students succeed academically, graduate on time, and emerge from school well prepared for college and careers. Today's emphasis on holding schools accountable for failure--while necessary--is at best a means to an end. Findings from local and statewide accountability systems can help state…

A central goal of the Portuguese compensatory education program--Territórios Educativos de Intervenção Prioritária (TEIP)--is the improvement of the academic performance of socioeconomically disadvantaged students. In this article, we seek to understand whether the schools involved in the program have been successful in reducing their academic…

A project to support underrepresented groups in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) subjects is being carried out at the Department of Computer Science at the Technical University of Nuremberg Georg Simon Ohm (TH GSO). This project intends to counteract the shortage of specialists in the STEM occupations by supporting underrepresented…

Graduation rates are affected by several factors in which school counselors are not always aware of. Current research highlights several demographics at a higher risk for dropping out of high school including low socioeconomic status, African-Americans, Hispanics, teen pregnancy and students whose parents dropped out of high school. This…

Early School Leaving in the European Union provides an analysis of early school leaving (ESL) in nine European Union countries, with a particular focus on young people who were previously enrolled in educational institutions inside and outside mainstream secondary education. The comparative approach employed by this volume adds to the existing…