Noah Kofi Karley

Homeownership, Poverty and Educational Achievement: School Effects as Neighbourhood Effects

One of the significant characteristics of many poor neighbourhoods is that the schools which serve them are characterised by poor performance in terms of attainment and other measures. This feature is seen as critical in the reinforcement of disadvantage, its transmission between generations, and as a barrier to social integration. Government policies in the UK have increasingly targeted improved school standards and performance, while other policies on urban regeneration and housing may interact with this issue. This paper examines the particular role of homeownership tenure alongside the other factors (notably poverty) which affect school attainment. After reviewing existing literature it presents new analyses of attainment based on linked pupil, school and small area-level datasets for selected areas in both England and Scotland. This provides some evidence to support the contention that homeownership has an additional effect on school attainment, beyond that explained by poverty and other associated variables, although there is some uncertainty about how separable these effects are at school or neighbourhood levels. It also points out the significant role of changing tenure mix in housing regeneration in transforming the overall profile of neighbourhoods and schools.

How Much Extra Affordable Housing is Needed in England

Booming housing markets in the UK have once again brought into sharper focus the issues of housing affordability, housing need and ‘affordable housing’ solutions. This paper reviews issues in the measurement of problems of affordability, particularly access to homeownership, and reports on modelled estimates for England at regional and local levels. These models provide a method for comparing pressures in different areas, but also for measuring market change over time and its relationship with the economy. They are also useful for identifying and assessing the scope for ‘intermediate’ forms of provision between conventional homeownership and social renting. Measures of recent and prospective needs for additional affordable housing provision, derived from this analysis of affordability, are presented and assessed. These findings are linked to a broader contemporary policy debate about housing and planning policy in England.

An outcome-based resource allocation model for local education services in Wales

Funding for local services such as education has for long been allocated on formulae claiming to reflect local variations in needs, although in practice these have often tended to reflect the patterns of past expenditure. The idea that such formulae might reflect explicit outcome criteria is not new, but only with the recent development of integrated multilevel databases has it become possible to develop this approach in a serious way. We identify the essential requirements of an outcome approach and discuss variant criteria in such a system. Data for the whole compulsory-age-range state school system in Wales are analysed to generate models predicting key attainment levels for individual pupils at 11 and 16. These are complemented by models for school costs and the incidence of special educational needs. Using these models it is possible to estimate the cost of achieving various target degrees of improvement or equalisation of outcomes, or compensation for relevant social disadvantages, balanced against constraints on the maximum degree of redistribution (via minimum school budgets). The results indicate that it is certainly possible to envisage such a system in operation, albeit subject to gradualist implementation, although the redistribution could have implications for particular localities which were controversial.

Developing Student Housing Quality Scale in Higher Institutions of Learning: A Factor Analysis Approach

The researchers developed an instrument for measuring student housing quality (SHQ) in Higher Institutions of Learning (HIL) in Ghana. The paper sought to validate the student housing quality scale (SHOQUAL) through factor analysis approach. 700 respondents were sampled from two public HIL in Ghana in a cross-sectional survey that used a self-administered structured questionnaire for data collection. Confirmatory factor fnalysis (CFA) was conducted to detect the underlying latent variables that significantly determine SHQ in Ghanaian HIL. The findings indicate that four emerged SHQ dimensions relevant to the research context were labelled as follows: core facility quality, enabling facility quality, support facility quality, and cost of housing. The constructs in the derived model possess high reliability and validity. Student housing service providers could conveniently use the derived instrument items for measuring SHQ in HIL. Implications are discussed and limitations are noted. The paper contributes to the literature in the areas of models of service quality in student housing management in HIL.

Remittances to Ghana： Benefits to the Housing Sector and Impact of Financial Crisis

The role of inflow of overseas remittances towards the development of housing sector in Ghana, and the impact of recent financial crisis on the development process is investigated. This is achieved through a review and analysis of information gathered through national and international statistical sources and targeted household and institutional interviews. As a prelude to the analysis the study assessed the importance of remittance as large and growing part of the economic underpinning of developing countries. It then assesses whether remittances have a particular relationship with housing. The research provided an estimate of the nature, level and uses of remittances and the different cyclical characters of other flows. It reveals that the successful real estate market development across Ghana during the past decade benefited from a buoyant national economy, improved financial systems and family remittances. However, the picture changed especially during 2008 attributed mainly to the global financial crisis and economic downturn. The reverberating problems of unemployment and high levels of bankruptcies in the advanced countries were felt but not as pronounced as they were in the major industrialised economies. The discussions concluded by posing a much broader question in relation to other developing countries about how remittances could be mobilised towards the development of the housing sector.