Although education in Latin America is a highly profitable investment, the present financial puts constraints on the amount of resources available for investment in the sector. Also, resources already devoted to education may not be used as efficiently as they could, and they may be inequitably distributed among different groups in the population. This paper presents a number of facts and issues related to the financing of education in Latin America and discusses some possible solutions. It is argued that cost-recovery in higher education, combined with the increased availability of educational credit and decentralization through private schools, may be the best policy package for addressing many crisis issues in education. Such a package would lead to a higher level of efficiency, in the sense that existing resources devoted to education will be better utilized. It will also attract more resources to a sector in which investments exhibit a high social profitability. Beyond the efficiency effect, charging for higher education would paradoxically be socially more equitable relative to the present situation of indiscriminate subsidies. THE FINANCING OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN LATIN AMERICA: ISSUES AND LINES OF ACTION As in other parts of the world, education in Latin America is a highly profitable investment. However, the present financial puts constraints on the amount of resources available for investment in the sector. Also, resources already devoted to education may not be used as efficiently as they could, and they may be inequitably distributed among different groups in the population. The purpose of this paper is, first, to present a number of facts and issues related to the financing of education in Latin America and, second, to discuss some possible solutions. While the focus of the paper is higher education in Latin America, other levels of education and world regions are incorporated in the analysis for comparative purposes. 1j I. Some General Trends As shown in Table 1, the social returns to investment in education in Latin America are substantial and, as in other parts of the / One caveat is in order at the outset. The paper heavily relies on a set of statistics that although are the relatively best and the only available, they leave much to be desired in terms of comprehensiveness and comparability across countries. For example, the 1985 Unesco Statistical Yearbook cites a 120 percent gross primary enrollment ratio for Colombia, although observers suggest that only one third of a given age group actually complete the primary cycle. world they are highest at the primary level. Nevertheless, university education exhibits a 16 percent rate of return which is well above any criterion discount rate (say, 10 percent). This means that expansion of any level of education in the region would be a good social investment. (Appendix Table A-1 gives estimates of the returns to education in individual Latin American countries). Table 1: The Returns to Investment in Education by Country Type and Level (Percent) Region Social Private Primary Secondary Higher Primary Secondary Higher Latin America 26 18 16 32 23 23 Developing countries 24 15 13 31 19 22 Developed countries 11 9 12 12 Source: Psacharopoulos (1985), Table 1. Note: Private returns take into account only the cost of education to the individual. In contrast, social returns are based on the full cost of education to society, so they are comparatively lower. Data were not available because no control group of illiterates was available. These magnitudes are likely to be under-estimates of the true social rates since they do not reflect non-market effects, which are expected to be substantial. Society as a whole gains from having a literate and numerate population, and there are indirect benefits, affecting health and fertility, which are not easily measured in monetary terms (but see Haveman and Wolfe, 1984).
The purpose of this paper is to document recent reforms in the administration and financing of education in Chile and to describe how they have been implemented. In primary and secondary education, the reforms consisted of decentralizing public schools by transferring them to municipalities and by encouraging the private sector to operate subsidized tuition-free schools. In higher education, the reforms consisted of allowing the private sector to create higher education institutions, raising tuition fees in public and private subsidized universities, introduction of student loans to needy students and a per-student payment for transferring public funds to universities. Although it is too early to say whether or not the reforms have succeeded, the paper makes several conclusions. Firstly, these well conceived and planned reforms have faced several implementation problems. Secondly, although the per-student payment system has worked well in primary and secondary schools, it has not done so well at the university level. Lastly, the private sector has responded rapidly to subsidized tuition-free schools and higher education institutions; tuition in public and private subsidized universities has increased; and student loans now constitute a large part of university financing.
Key Settlement Policy divides rural settlements into two types?those in which expansion is allowed and those in which it is not. Although suitability for residential expansion is not completely synonymous with suitability for infrastructure investment (nor vice versa) the designation of Key Settlement or non-Key Settlement status does not have a significant impact on infrastructure and service provision. In the light of central and local public expenditure economies and of the 1985 Transport Act, therefore, key Settlement Policy takes on a renewed political importance. In 1982 the Warwickshire policy was changed, involving some changes in designation, and also a beginning of decentralization of designation decisions away from the county to the constituent districts. The change was justified by the argument that the policy had previously been ineffective. However, analysis of the 17 key settlements and 17 control non-key settlements from 1966 to 1981, with respect to population change, refusal rates, Planning Inspectors' decision letters, and appeal decisions, shows that the policy was effective. It is argued that the reason for the policy change in 1982 stems from central government and County Council political objectives, and that decentralization of designation powers to districts constitutes a loss of accountability for rural policy in Warwickshire. PRESENT GOVERNMENT POLICIES toward rural areas emphasize efficiency, rationalization, and cost-cutting of rural services. Many village schools are closing as school rolls fall nationally, and as local authorities search for economies. The national bill for subsidizing the bus companies is threatening to reach ?1 billion annually, and legislation now before Parliament seeks radically to reduce this vast sum by means of privatization, a measure which will cut unprofitable bus routes considerably, mainly in rural areas. Also, as the Post Office looks for greater efficiency, an acceleration of closures of rural post offices may occur. It is in this context that we investigate Warwickshire County Council's rural settlement policy. Rural settlement policies, because of the trend towards cutbacks in services, are increasingly coming to the forefront of politics in rural areas. Such policies are, and will increasingly become, the main instrument for deciding which settlements should suffer from loss of rural services, since they indicate settlement hierarchies, and therefore serve as a means of discriminating between those settlements which should be favoured ('key settlements') and those which should suffer from cutbacks. Although many of the threatened services are being privatized and thus are moving ostensibly out of the local political arena, any decision on specific cutbacks in specific areas will necessarily implicate local government. Local politicians will be unable to avoid the political storms and subsequent unpopularity thus created. The government has repeatedly made clear that any loss of services resulting from privatization should occur only after consultation with the relevant local authority. Other services, such as education and social services, obviously implicate local politicians more directly, in their continuing search for economies. Moreover, changes in government thinking on the financing of local government continually emphasize the need to make local politicians more accountable for the costs of local services to the local voters. The present Conservative Government has, since 1979, carried an election pledge to implement this change?by reforming the rating system. Furthermore, suggestions currently being considered emphasize a
The certification of suicide as the manner of death is frequently contested in court by the victim's survivors, particularly when there are life insurance benefits at stake. The evidence upon which the opinion of suicide is based must, therefore, meet the standard of proof required in law, if it is to be sustained by the courts. This standard of proof and some of its contingent common law doctrines are discussed, with references to several judicial opinions from cases which involved contested suicides.
This report discusses the benefits and applicability of Firm Fixed-Price, Fixed-Price Award Fee, Cost Plus Award Fee and Hybrid contracts for use in installation support service contracts. Impacts on the Commercial Activities and Small Business programs are discussed. Recommendations for specific actions to improve installation support contracts are presented.
In this chapter I discuss the emergence and development of the two major decentralized civilizations of the first millennium b.c. , Phoenicia and Greece. I concentrate on Greece because it is considerably better documented: We can distinguish the principal phases of its dialectic of development. I argue that the massive contributions of both peoples to the development of social power is to be attributed to the decentralized, multi-level nature of their civilizations, appropriate for taking advantage of the geopolitical, military, and economic legacy of their region, especially that bequeathed by the Near Eastern empires of domination. I suggest that two principal dialectics can be discerned in the emergence of Phoenicia and Greece as “leading edges” of contemporary power. The first, discussed briefly and tentatively, concerns the possibility that these civilizations were part of a macro historical process. In this case, decentralized multi power-actor civilizations lying on the marches of established empires of domination exploited the success plus the institutional rigidity of those empires to “emerge interstitially” and establish their own autonomous power organizations. After a long, successful process of power development, however, their own organizations became institutionalized and rigid. Now they become vulnerable in their turn to new empires of domination lying on their marches. Such a process can be traced in the first millennium b.c. The extent to which it was, indeed, part of a macro historical process will be left to the concluding chapter. The second dialectic concerns that “middle period” of developmental success.
The North Pacific right whale population was hunted commercially between 1835 and 1935, at which time the species received protection. Commercial whalers harvested over 15,000 North Pacific right whales during this period, so reducing the population that today there are an estimated 100-200 right whales in the North Pacific. The American Pacific Whaling Company operated in the Gulf of Alaska and eastern Bering Sea during 1917-39. We report the distribution, sexes, and lengths of 20 right whales recorded in the company logbooks and ledgers. These records identify that right whale catches were widely distributed on the whaling grounds and tended to decrease over the May-October whaling season. Of the 17 whales for which sex and length data were documented, 11 were females. Their average length exceeded that of males. Lengths of the whales indicated that 41 percent of the catch were sexually mature; two females carried fetuses. Although the sample size is small, these results suggest that the North Pacific right whale population was inhabiting its historic summering grounds after the period of heavy exploitation in the 1800s, reproducing as late as 1926, and supporting a subadult cohort at least until the species was protected.Key words: right whale, North Pacific Ocean, Alaska, Distribution
Beckett’s Deconstruction of the Machine in The Lost Ones David Porush T HE POWER OF THE MACHINE IN LITERATURE lies in its ability to focus attention on one of our deeply-rooted beliefs. The machine is a universal symbol of our culture’s blind devotion to logical method, and has remained constant in this symbology through two-and-one-half centuries of literature. Even though the complexity of the machines that have inspired our metaphors have grown—from blocks of wood inscribed with letters and turned by cranks in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels to the hyper-evolved computer of John Barth’s Giles Goat-Boy—the tenor, the argument of these metaphors has remained the same. The machine is an invitation and a warning. It is simultaneously fas cinating and threatening. It is somehow both superior to and inferior to the punier humans who build, operate and sometimes are subjugated by it. Machines are tangible proof of the success of our scientific tech niques; as William Barrett suggests, they are “ embodied decision pro cedures.” At the same time, they testify to what is sadly diminished and insufficient in our blind faith that our techniques of discovery, our calculus and physics and biochemistry and cybernetics, will tell the whole story. While we may be ennobled by our grandiose fiction that the universe is a clockwork mechanism, there is also something inherently depressing about the vision of our spirits acting as mere cogs in that mechanism. To some behaviorists, logical positivists, artificial intelligence theo rists and sheer rationalists, the ghost in the machine is a delusion we’ve conjured to comfort ourselves with a superiority that cannot be proven. In their view, the human mind is just a brain, and its processes, though extraordinarily complex, will eventually be elucidated as surely as the atomic weights of different elements in the periodic table. But to others —some quantum physicists, artists, writers and phenomenologists, especially—there is room for doubt. The periodic table is a convenient model, but not a description, of the elusive mechanics of the atom, which has been subdivided into quarks and a host of even more intangible parVOL . XXVI, No. 4 87 L ’E s pr it C r éa te u r tides which wink in and out of existence depending upon your point of view. Artists have a special stake in drawing a line around some portion of the soul and proscribing its analysis: they naturally want to believe that the products of their labor manifest a freedom and uniqueness which lie above or below the level of mechanical description. And for writers who are alert to these phenomenological notions abroad in the culture, language is the fulcrum on which the argument see-saws. The periodic table, the cybernetic metaphor that the brain is a machine, etc., are metaphors. Yet, writers are the first to acknowledge the power of metaphors. Whatever its status as truth, a metaphor is “ a thrust at truth or a lie,” again “ depending upon your point of view,” as Thomas Pynchon remarks. And these machine metaphors in particular have taken root to such depth that they have become invisible.1They are resurrected only by fear—What is the machine doing to us?, or by a counter-metaphor—We are not-machines! Both tactics present an invitation to fiction, often in tandem, which many contemporary American authors have found irresistible, among them John Barth in Giles Goat-Boy, Donald Barthelme in several short stories, William Burroughs through his mythology, but especially in The Soft Machine and The Nova Express, Joseph McElroy in PLUS, the noted science fiction writer Philip K. Dick, especially in “ Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.” 2 What these postmodernists have in common is that they view litera ture as engaged in a battle, and effectively so, against the imperialism of the machine. They have several weapons in their armory: selfconsciousness , irony, a tacit distrust of language as an effective means of expression, and metaphors. They combine these weapons with a peculiar but singularly effective strategy: all the texts in this class are disguised as machines or the products o f machines. For instance, John Barth’s Giles Goat...