Recent research on the effects of COVID-19 on school closures has mainly focused on primary and secondary education, with extremely limited attention to early childhood education (ECE). To address ...this gap, we identify the extent to which parents and caregivers with pre-primary school-aged children were engaged in their children’s learning during school closures in Ethiopia. Our focus on Ethiopia is of particular relevance given that ECE provision has expanded dramatically in recent years, aimed at ensuring children are prepared for primary school. Using data collected through a phone survey with 480 parents and caregivers, the results revealed that learning disruption due to COVID-19 school closures is likely to be substantial and will probably widen existing inequalities further. Many poorer households and those where parents or caregivers are not literate, are less likely to have child-oriented learning resources, and home learning activities between parents and children in these households are limited. The study highlights that greater attention needs to be paid to mitigate the threats of COVID-19 on Ethiopia’s recent gains in ECE, to prevent the pandemic from further reinforcing inequalities between children from advantaged and disadvantaged households.
This study examines whether a large expansion of pre-primary education in Ethiopia affected subsequent students’ learning outcomes during the national reform of pre-primary education. The study ...utilizes two comparable, representative early grade reading assessment data that straddle the reform period from 2010 to 2016, during which enrolment rates in pre-primary education soared by nearly ten times nationwide. We find that associations between preschool participation and literacy outcomes were positive and significant after the expansion, yet no such relationships were observed before the reform. However, there was little heterogeneity in the gains of the preschool participation by gender, urbanity, and parental literacy. We discuss implications for ongoing reform, including strategic and inclusive policy designed to close the learning gap between children from advantaged and disadvantaged backgrounds.
•Ethiopia has experienced a rapid reform of pre-primary education, with enrolment rising from 5% in 2010 to 50% in 2016.•This large-scale preschool expansion is positively associated with improved students’ literacy outcomes in primary school.•Yet, there is little heterogeneity in the gains from preschool participation by gender, urbanity, and parental literacy.•The study highlights the need for policy and targeted early interventions to close the learning gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged children.
Background. Despite high clinical significance, the microbiology of the dental biofilm in young children remains poorly understood.
Aim. The aim of this longitudinal study was to investigate five ...Streptoccocus species commonly found in the oral biofilm of children, namely Streptococcus mutans, Streptococcus sobrinus, Streptococcus mitis, Streptococcus sanguinis, and Streptococcus salivarius to determine their relative numbers in caries‐free pre‐term children, and age‐matched full‐term controls.
Design. Plaque and saliva samples were obtained from 15 pre‐term children and 15 age‐matched controls at ages 3, 6, 12, 18, and 24 months. A quantitative real‐time PCR technique was used to determine the numbers of five species of Streptococcus using probes and primers specific for each bacterial species.
Results. All species of Streptococcus generally increased from ages 3 to 24 months. The relative ratios of the bacteria remained fairly constant at all ages studied (P > 0.1). There were no significant differences in numbers of all Streptococcus species between pre‐term children and full‐term controls at all the ages investigated between.
Conclusion. The results show that the relative numbers of S. mutans, S. sobrinus, S. mitis, S. sanguinis, and S. salivarius remain relatively constant from 3 to 24 months of age in caries‐free pre‐ and full‐term children.
The salivary epithelium initiates as a solid mass of epithelial cells that are organized into a primary bud that undergoes morphogenesis and differentiation to yield bilayered acini consisting of ...interior secretory acinar cells that are surrounded by contractile myoepithelial cells in mature salivary glands. How the primary bud transitions into acini has not been previously documented. We document here that the outer epithelial cells subsequently undergo a vertical compression as they express smooth muscle α-actin and differentiate into myoepithelial cells. The outermost layer of polarized epithelial cells assemble and organize the basal deposition of basement membrane, which requires basal positioning of the polarity protein, Par-1b. Whether Par-1b is required for the vertical compression and differentiation of the myoepithelial cells is unknown. Following manipulation of Par-1b in salivary gland organ explants, Par-1b-inhibited explants showed both a reduced vertical compression of differentiating myoepithelial cells and reduced levels of smooth muscle α-actin. Rac1 knockdown and inhibition of Rac GTPase function also inhibited branching morphogenesis. Since Rac regulates cellular morphology, we investigated a contribution for Rac in myoepithelial cell differentiation. Inhibition of Rac GTPase activity showed a similar reduction in vertical compression and smooth muscle α-actin levels while decreasing the levels of Par-1b protein and altering its basal localization in the outer cells. Inhibition of ROCK, which is required for basal positioning of Par-1b, resulted in mislocalization of Par-1b and loss of vertical cellular compression, but did not significantly alter levels of smooth muscle α-actin in these cells. Overexpression of Par-1b in the presence of Rac inhibition restored basement membrane protein levels and localization. Our results indicate that the basal localization of Par-1b in the outer epithelial cells is required for myoepithelial cell compression, and Par-1b is required for myoepithelial differentiation, regardless of its localization.
To characterize longitudinal changes in Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) DNA post-radiotherapy in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) patients, and investigate whether an early (0-2 weeks) or delayed (8-12 weeks) ...EBV DNA result better predicts for disease-free survival (DFS).
Histologically-confirmed NPC patients with ≥1 EBV DNA test quantified using the harmonized BamHI-W polymerase chain reaction-based assay at 0-2 and 8-12 weeks post-radiotherapy were included.
We identified 302 patients with EBV DNA measured at 0-2 weeks post-radiotherapy; of which, 110 (36.4 %) underwent a repeat test at 8-12 weeks post-treatment. Patients harboring a detectable EBV DNA at 0-2 weeks experienced an inferior DFS (adjusted HR
1.72 95 %CI: 1.05-2.83, P = 0.031; AHR
4.39 95 %CI: 1.68-11.44, P = 0.002 relative to 0 copies/mL). At 8-12 weeks, we observed substantial shifts in EBV DNA readings from 0 to 2 weeks; 76/110 (69.1 %) and 34/110 (30.9 %) patients at 0-2 weeks versus 90/110 (81.8 %) and 20/110 (18.2 %) at 8-12 weeks recorded undetectable and detectable EBV DNA, respectively. Positive EBV DNA at 8-12 weeks was strongly associated with relapse (73.3 % 11/15 for 1-264; 80.0 % 4/5 for ≥265 subgroups had relapses versus 15.6 % 14/90 for 0 copies/mL). Area under receiver operating curve values for 2-year relapse rates were 0.817 (95 %CI: 0.725-0.909) for stage + EBV DNA
versus 0.654 (95 %CI: 0.542-0.765) for stage + EBV DNA
CONCLUSION: EBV DNA is dynamic post-radiotherapy, and delayed EBV DNA testing better enriched for higher-risk NPC patients. This implicates trials investigating adjuvant chemotherapy intensification based on early EBV DNA testing.
•Following a national policy reform of early childhood education in Ethiopia, the enrolment rate increased from 5 percent in 2010 to 46 percent in 2016.•Following this large-scale expansion of early ...childhood education, we find that inequalities in preschool access persisted with respect to a child's geographical location, gender, age.•Parental literacy plays a significant role in determining preschool participation in both 2010 and 2016.•After the expansion, preschool participation is significantly and positively associated with children's early reading skills in primary schools.
In Ethiopia, major policy reforms to increase equitable access to pre-primary education were instigated in 2010, leading to a surge in pre-primary school enrolment. This paper investigates the effects of the expansion on who gets access to pre-primary education and on readiness for primary school. We find that inequalities in pre-primary access between advantaged and disadvantaged regions of the country persist following the reforms, with girls less likely to attend school, particularly in more disadvantaged regions. More than half of children enrolled in pre-primary classrooms are below the official age of 6 years. Children from more advantaged backgrounds (those whose parents are literate, have reading materials at home, and live in urban areas) are more likely to participate in pre-primary schools both before and after the reform. Yet pre-primary education could play a role in equalizing opportunities in primary school: we find pre-primary participation to be positively associated with children's reading skills in Grades 2 and 3 of primary school after the expansion. These findings highlight the need to focus policy attention on efforts to reduce barriers to pre-primary access for children in disadvantaged circumstances.
This paper describes the experiences of young Korean women being recruited to work in factories during the Japanese colonial era (1910-1945). Though Korean industrialization began about 1910, the ...military-industrial complex needed all the workers it could get during WWI & again during WWII, & many were women. The factory girls of the 1920s & 1930s have been portrayed as victims of capitalism, while during the late 1930s & early 1940s, many were recruited away from the factories to serve as "comfort women" or sex slaves for the Japanese military. This discussion of Korean women's work during 1937-1945 serves to explain their contributions to industrial production in the Japanese wartime empire; outline the policies & programs that placed industry & labor within the scope of imperial mobilization; elaborate on how female labor recruitment was performed; describe how the Women's Labor Volunteer Corps mobilized trainable female workers; &, drawing from the oral histories of these female volunteers, to illustrate some lesser known effects of Japan's total war in Korea. Appendixes, References. J. Stanton
This article examines the changes that the Korean War and influx of evacuees brought about in the temporary wartime capital at Pusan. It describes the two waves of in-migration into the city-the ...first following the outbreak of war on 25 June 1950 and the second after the Chinese People's Volunteer Force occupied Seoul on 4 January 1951. While the first round of conflict brought some 200,000 evacuees to Pusan, mostly relatives of political and military families and the Seoul elite, the second ushered in an overwhelming half million displaced people, including over 100,000 refugees from North Korea. The rapid influx of a transient population exhausted public services and resources that the war already had diminished. The simultaneous development of a u.s. military complex in southeast Korea gave rise to rampant illegal trade and prostitution. Although schemes to continue wartime education testifies to the agency of evacuees to enact continuity in liminal spaces, only the elite could go to school without interruption in a devastated, aid-dependent, hyperinflationary economy. This article evaluates some characteristics of wartime Pusan-with privatized continuation of educational and religious institutions on one hand, and dependence on u.s. aid and military along with widespread prostitution and illegal trade on the other-to help explain why they remained salient features of the South Korean developmental state long after the armistice.
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