Bottlenecks in the decentralisation of education funding in Poland

Ten years after delegating the responsibility for school management and operation maintenance to local governments, the education funding system in Poland still faces open challenges of fundamental importance. Although the decentralisation of education is commonly considered a success, the particular mechanisms of funding and legal solutions are hotly debated and certainly far from perfect. The financial responsibilities of the central government and the local authorities are imprecisely defined, which provokes conflicts and tensions between the main stakeholders. Moreover, the Polish education system lacks even the basic standards describing an efficient way of service provision. The formula used to allocate the so-called education subvention to individual local governments is subject to endless political bargains and trades and hardly reflects any reasonable policy. Recently, several ideas have been raised in the public debate in Poland on how to reform the funding of education. However, it seems that these heavily ideologised projects go far beyond the necessary changes and do not take into account either the complex context of decentralised education system or the experiences of other countries.edcation finance; decentralisation; Poland

International Laws of War and the African Child: Norms, Compliance, and Sovereignty

The Convention on the Rights of the Child of 1989 is one of the most prominent international humanitarian treaty in world history. It entered into force quicker than any other treaty and currently only two countries (the United States and Somalia) have not ratified it.1 Carol Bellamy, Executive Director of UNICEF, says that the Convention has become “the centerpiece of a global movement, a movement that reflects a growing awareness of the importance of safeguarding human rights—and child rights in particular.”2 Similarly, Lisbet Palme claimed, after travelling to some of the worst conflict zones in Africa, that, “For many of the children I have met and talked with, the Convention takes on a very meaningful reality.”3 Yet, during the 1990’s, more children in Africa became victims of, and combatants in, war than at any time in history. Partially as a result, a bitter Human Rights Watch Report assessing the state of children’s rights ten years after the Convention on the Rights of Children came into force was entitled Promises Broken.4 Indeed, to enhance further international humanitarian law protecting children during war, governments agreed in January 2000, after six years of negotiations, to an Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child that raises the minimum age of combatants to eighteen.

Modeling Carbon Chain Anions in L1527

The low-mass protostellar region L1527 is unusual because it contains observable abundances of unsaturated carbon-chain molecules including CnH radicals, H2Cn carbenes, cyanopolyynes, and the negative ions C4H- and C6H-, all of which are more associated with cold cores than with protostellar regions. Sakai et al. suggested that these molecules are formed in L1527 from the chemical precursor methane, which evaporates from the grains during the heat-up of the region. With the gas-phase osu.03.2008 network extended to include negative ions of the families Cn-, and CnH-, as well as the newly detected C3N-, we modeled the chemistry that occurs following methane evaporation at T~ 25-30 K. We are able to reproduce most of the observed molecular abundances in L1527 at a time of ~5000 yr. At later times, the overall abundance of anions become greater than that of electrons, which has an impact on many organic species and ions. The anion-to-neutral ratio in our calculation is in good agreement with observation for C6H- but exceeds the observed ratio by more than three orders of magnitude for C4H-. In order to explain this difference, further investigation is needed on the rate coefficients for electron attachment and other reactions regarding anions.Comment: 28 pages, 8 figures, ApJ accepte

The design of vertical R&D collaborations

Suppliers play a major role in innovation processes. We analyze ownership allocations and the choice of R&D technology in vertical R&D cooperations. Given incomplete contracts on the R&D outcome, there is a tradeoff between R&D specifically designed towards a manufacturer (increasing investment productivity) and a general technology (hold-up reduction). We find that the market solution yields the specific technology in too few cases. More intense product market competition shifts optimal ownership towards the supplier. The use of exit clauses increases the gains from the collaboration. JEL Classification: L22, L24, O31, O3