Nadir Zanini

Designing effective educational policies: what can we learn from an Italian case study

We discuss the design and implementation of educational programmes aimed at increasing university enrolment. We focus on a means-test policy introduced in the Italian province of Trento, which consists of a monetary incentive in the form of a grant. To reduce inequalities in access to higher education, aid is awarded according to merit and financial need. Previous research has shown that this programme has no effect on the university enrolment. Therefore, our aim is to understand, through examination of a unique data set, why the policy failed; we also argue that the most effective design of educational policies considers the targeted populations demand for higher education, as well as socioeconomic context. In this way, we provide insight into the formalisation and efficacy of the eligibility conditions. Though our research is concerned with a province, our findings have important implications for how educational programmes should be designed and implemented nationwide and abroad.

The role of the A* grade at A level as a predictor of university performance in the United Kingdom

In summer 2010, the A* grade at A level was awarded for the first time. This grade was introduced to help higher education institutions to differentiate between the highest achieving candidates and to promote and reward greater stretch and challenge. Exploring data from the Higher Education Statistics Service and making use of multilevel regression models, this research investigated for the first time the relationship between achieved A* grades and performance at the end of three-year courses in higher education institutions in the United Kingdom. The results of this work showed that, when prior schooling and other background characteristics were accounted for, the number of A* grades was a good predictor of achieving either a first or at least an upper second class degree. Specific subject-level analyses revealed that the number of top grades in some A level subjects was associated with good degree outcomes in specific degree subject areas.

Higher education choices of secondary school graduates with a Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics (STEM) background

Abstract Recently, there has been an increase in the Higher Education (HE) options (in terms of both courses and institutions) available to students in the UK. Given that the choice of institution and field of study are crucial for students’ future careers, we investigated how attributes of the institutions and courses determine students’ choices, and how they interact with student characteristics. Data on graduates with a STEM background, who started a course in 2010/11 in an English HE institution, was analysed using a conditional logit model. The research demonstrated that an institution’s prestige, degree subject area and distance from home play an important role in students’ choices. Furthermore, distance from home to the HE institution is a potential barrier to fair access, as socio-economically deprived students may have less choice if they are not able to travel as far.

La valutazione degli effetti di una misura locale contro la povertà: il Reddito di Garanzia in provincia di Trento

In 2009, the autonomous Province of Trento introduced a minimum income scheme, known as Reddito di Garanzia, to relieve poor families living in the local community. The paper focuses on the results of a counterfactual impact evaluation of this policy. The data used to carry out the evaluation comes from a two waves panel survey, which involved a sample of recipients (treatment group) and a sample of non-recipients (control group). The evaluation strategy is based on a Difference-in-Differences design and the analyses are carried out separately for natives and immigrants. The analyses show that the programme has: (i) reduced the material deprivation of immigrants; (ii) increased their expenses for food consumptions; (iii) expanded social relations of native recipients; and (iv) barely affected the participation in the labour market participation of both native and immigrants.