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This study aims to determine how school-based management (SBM) capacity developed through international cooperation functioned to overcome challenges during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in Nepal.

The research structure was designed based on the success case method. The researchers conducted a questionnaire survey of head teachers to understand schools’ responses during the COVID-19 pandemic period, identified likely success-case schools, held workshops at the likely success-case schools and conducted in-depth interviews with head teachers and school management committee (SMC) members to understand how SBM functioned and contributed to the success cases.

Storytelling from the success-case schools provided reliable evidence that the localised approaches of SBM are effective for planning and implementing suitable responses at school. The reviews of the head teachers showed that both head teachers and teachers had strong leadership and understood the importance of collaboration with teachers, SMC members, Parent Teacher Association (PTA), guardians and students. Although the research could not show clear evidence of a causal relationship between their achievement and Japan’s project input, the success-case schools clearly benefited from the head teachers’ appropriate execution of SBM with their strong leadership as well as the collaborative efforts of the stakeholders.

The research tries to clarify the influence of the effects of SBM capacity development projects by analysing the changes of head teachers and teachers through the storytelling aspect of the success case method with in-depth consideration of actual school responses during the emergency period of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The purpose of this study is to understand the multiple aspects of readjustment of repatriates and to identify determinants relating to the readjustment, to enable MNEs (multinational enterprises) to utilize the advantages and retain the valuable knowledge that repatriates offer to the organization for talent management.

This study conducted a quantitative work involving questionnaire responses of 192 repatriates who returned to Japan after international assignments in MNEs.

Based on the results of the analysis using this Japanese data, the discussion is summarized in the following three points. First, it is important to seek determinants for the readjustment by focusing on all the aspects of ‘repatriation adjustment’ because the determinants of subordinate aspects are not always identical. Second, ‘organizational factors — work duties’ play a vital role in the readjustment to the organization different from the readjustment to daily life. Further, organizations benefit from providing assistance to both the repatriates and the family of the repatriates to ensure that they are able to successfully readjust to life in the home country.

This study performed a comprehensive analysis of the subordinate concepts of the ‘repatriation adjustment’ dividing it into four aspects of job and private life. Factors related to the readjustment were classified into three factors by using a framework that analyses issues repatriates face by classifying these into changes occurring over time and changes due to cultural differences, and show a logical framework that elucidates the repatriation adjustment factors.

This research explores the impact of the locally grown strategies for learning support, as a positive deviance (PD) study, during the COVID-19 pandemic in rural Uganda.

The researchers employed a randomized control trial (RCT) as an original design whereby 50 schools received a full package of SMS and WhatsApp peer groups of head teachers, 50 schools received SMS only and another 50 served as a control group. As an analytical method, this study adopted a difference-in-difference (DID) model to analyze the impact of the radio talk shows promoted through SMS followed by discussion among WhatsApp peer groups. The data collected in June 2021 and February 2022 were used due to the COVID-19-related data limitation of the baseline survey collected in 2019.

The authors found that the local radio talk shows as a PD intervention had a humble impact on preventing pupils’ dropout during the school closures for two years in Uganda. However, the authors did not obtain a significant result on the impact of the PD intervention on pedagogical support or learning outcomes at the school level. The authors also found that the pupils have significantly dropped their level of proficiencies in literacy and numeracy during the pandemic.

The findings could be of value for the leaders, educators and policymakers to understand the most recent update of learning situation in Uganda and the potential impact of locally grown strategies for learning which does not require external inputs.

This research clarifies the birth and evolution of “Social Study” in Myanmar through analyzing the differences of contents and approaches between “Social Studies” under the military administration and that under the recent democratic administration.

The author obtained “Social Studies” textbooks that were used both in the past as well as in present day and translated them into English. The textbooks’ contents were analyzed in detail while referring Japanese and American “Social Studies” textbooks. Specifically, the author focused on the content structure of the textbooks and the learning objectives and approaches used. Each textbook was analyzed in accordance with the era in which they were used considering the social and political conditions at those times. In addition, the author clarified the necessary competencies for the people of Myanmar during the new era through discussions with many Myanmar educators. Based on this research, the author advised the Ministry of Education on the content of new “Social Studies” textbooks and supported their development.

The idea of child-centered education introduced under the military administration was further strengthened in the recent new “Social Studies” textbooks allowing students to learn by tapping into their interests and also encouraging deep thinking and creativity. This approach changed their learning from memorization without deep thinking in the past to contemplating things and creating new ideas.

The findings can provide curriculum developers and educators in other countries with a broad direction on how to reform “Social Studies” and related subjects curricula and textbooks in their own countries in the future.

While privatisation in education is expanding, the number of children transferring from public to private schools seeking high-quality education has increased. This study examined equality of educational opportunity, focussing on the attributes of individual children and their familial backgrounds. The target country is Nepal, which has been facing an educational disparity problem between public and private schools.

This study performed a logistic regression analysis with the objective variable as the binary capability to attend a private school and analysed the differences between children who attended public versus private schools. Semi-structured interviews with subjects and teachers and home-visit surveys were conducted to collect and confirm data.

This study revealed that particular children were excluded from seeking high-quality education in form of attending private schools. These children's characteristics correspond to lower economic status, illiterate mothers, being only children and female. Moreover, the study observed changes in awareness due to the modernisation and globalisation of Nepali society and growing enthusiasm for education, amongst others.

Research on privatisation and access to quality education, which has attracted scholarly attention in recent years, requires a broader scope regarding target countries and more in-depth analyses. This study focussed on Nepal since, in the country, the phenomenon of children leaving public for private schools is prominent and little research has been conducted on this context. Additionally, since the study gathered extensive data on individual children and did not rely on secondary data, it was possible to perform an in-depth analysis and accurately portray the real situation faced by Nepali children.

Scholars have explained how people in Japan feel ashamed when elderly members of the family are cared for by formal services such as day care or government/commercial-based nursing homes due to the cultural norms of the consciousness of social appearance. However, this consciousness of social appearance plays a minimum role when it comes to elderly Japanese immigrant women's preference to utilize formal care services in the United States. They see receiving family based care as a burden on their middle-aged children (or grandchildren) and they prefer purchasing formal long-term care services when they can no longer feel confident about maintaining their independent lives. Elderly Japanese immigrant women hold rather positive views on formal care in the United States, including nursing homes. This chapter suggests that elderly Japanese immigrant women may not consider it shameful to utilize formal care as many previous scholars have suggested.

Using the forensic investigation (FORIN) approach, the purpose of this paper is to identify the factors that exacerbated the loss of human life in one of the most devastated local municipalities on the coast by 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami (GEJET) disaster.

This paper begins by reviewing the extent of damage to the local municipalities along the Sanriku ria coast, which has a long history of tsunami disasters. Second, the paper compares previous major tsunami events by using a human vulnerability index, and applies this index to detect the city of Rikuzentakata. Third, the paper identifies the root causes of the GEJET disaster in the city. Interview records with disaster victims were used to elucidate the main factors that exacerbated the number of deaths.

The study indicates that the FORIN approach can be effectively applied to identify the target city for this case study and to point to those factors the most exacerbated human sufferings, and also provides many lessons based on research findings and methodologies to support building resilient societies in the future.

This paper indicates FORIN approach as an effective research template by investigating the GEJET disaster.