The Human Development Index, which accounts for both net foreign income and the total value of goods and services generated domestically, illustrates how income becomes less significant as Gross National Income (GNI) rises by using the logarithm of income. South Africa ranks 109th out of 189 countries in the Human Development Index (HDI) within the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) economic bloc, raising long-term sustainability concerns. The study explores the relationship between economic, demography, policy indicators and human development in South Africa. South Africa’s unique status as a developing country within the BRICS economic group, alongside its lengthy history of racial discrimination, calls for a sophisticated approach to understanding Human Development. Existing research considered economic, demography, policy indicators independently; the gap of understanding their interconnection and long-term effects in the South African contexts exists. The study addresses the gap by using Autoregressive-Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach to investigate the short-term and the long-term relationship between economic, demography, policy indicators and human development in South Africa. By discovering these links, the study hopes to provide useful insights for policymakers seeking to promote sustainable human development in South Africa. The findings indicate that growth in GDP is a key factor in the HDI since it shows that there are more financial resources available for human development. By discovering these links, the study hopes to provide useful insights for policymakers seeking to promote sustainable human development in South Africa.
The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic led to the need to move educational processes to virtual environments and increase the use of digital tools for different teaching uses. This led to a change in the habits of using information and communication technologies (ICT), especially in higher education. This work analyzes the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the frequency of use of different ICT tools in a sample of 950 Latin American university professors while focusing on the area of knowledge of the participating professors. To this end, a validated questionnaire has been used, the responses of which have been statistically analyzed. As a result, it has been proven that participants give high ratings to ICT but show insufficient digital competences for its use. The use of ICT tools has increased in all areas after the pandemic but in a diverse way. Differences have been identified in the areas of knowledge regarding the use of ICT for different uses before the pandemic. In this sense, the results suggest that Humanities professors are the ones who least use ICT for didactic purposes. On the other hand, after the pandemic, the use of ICT for communication purposes has been homogenized among the different knowledge areas.
A decent income is an important part of overcoming economic disparities in agricultural development, especially in developing countries where most of the population are small farmers. As a developing country, Indonesia has also established a decent standard of living by setting a minimum wage as a reference for a decent income at the national and regional levels. However, this benchmark is not relevant to be applied uniformly at all levels of workers. This research determines the national coffee development area as the study center. We developed the Anker living wage methodology as a simple concept for determining living income for certain worker communities, especially for small farmers in rural areas who dominate the type of work in Indonesia. a socio-spatial approach is used to visualize the distribution of the dynamics of a decent life in various conditions of farming households. We found that 96.6% of coffee farming households in the national coffee development area had an inadequate living income, and only 3.4% were at an adequate level. We conclude that the current state of agricultural land management does not guarantee a decent income, even though efforts have been made to maximize agricultural crop productivity. The spatial description also shows that this condition is evenly distributed throughout residential areas. It is hoped that this approach can become an essential reference in implementing agricultural development programs that focus on welfare and equitable development as benchmarks for sustainable development goals in the future.
Purpose: This research paper aims to assess the proficiency of tertiary education providers in engaging with online learning environments, especially in the context of the post-COVID-19 transition. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of online learning platforms, it is essential to understand how educational institutions have adapted and evolved in their approach to virtual education. The central research question explores how Continuous Professional Development (CPD), Technological Infrastructure (TI), and Support Systems (SS) collectively influence educators’ proficiency in online teaching (POT). Study design/methodology/approach: A comparative study was performed, comparing data collected during the COVID-19 pandemic with post-pandemic data from higher education institutions in Uzbekistan. In-depth interviews were conducted with 15 education facilitators representing both public and international educational institutions. This purposive sampling approach allows for a holistic exploration of the experiences, challenges, strategies, and preparedness of these facilitators during the transition to online learning. Manual qualitative data classification and content analysis were employed to understand themes in respondent experiences and identified actions. Findings: The study reveals the significant role of CPD, robust TI, and effective SS in enhancing the Proficiency of tertiary education providers in engaging with Online Teaching. These elements were found to be significant determinants of how well institutions and educators adapted to the shift to virtual education. The research offers valuable insights for educators, policymakers, and students, aiding in decision-making processes within academia and guiding the development and implementation of effective online teaching strategies. Originality/value: This study contributes to the existing literature by providing an in-depth understanding of the adjustments education facilitators make in response to the pandemic. It emphasizes the importance of ongoing preparation for online learning and highlights the role of digital workplace capabilities in ensuring successful interaction in virtual educational environments.
At the beginning of the 21st century, sustainability is today’s most important issue, but it is achieved only in those areas where there is environmental awareness. Natural heritage is a part of heritage tourism in terms of the grouping of attraction types. The conceptualization of heritage and cultural heritage itself is not uniform in the national and domestic literature, with some considering heritage tourism to be synonymous with cultural tourism and others interpreting it as a connotation. This study aims to present the natural heritage of Győr-Moson-Sopron County (Hungary). Quantitative research was used to analyze the topic (N = 666), the sample is not representative and the selection of respondents was random. Data were collected between 1 September 2023 and 31 October 2023 using electronic questionnaires shared on Google Drive. Data were processed using SPSS 25.0 and MS Office Excel in addition to the descriptive statistical data (modus, median, standard deviation), correlation, and cross-tabulation analyses. In the framework of quantitative research, respondents’ travel willingness to visit tourist attractions, their specific expenditures, and their intention to participate in various events were conducted. The following questions are addressed in the study, whether all three national parks (Fertő-Hanság, Pannontáj-Sokoró and Szigetköz) are equally popular among tourists, whether the educational level of tourists influences the visitation of Lake Fertő, whether the respondents’ place of residence and the Danube floodplain influence the visitation of the lake and whether the age of the respondents influences the visitation of the 700-year-old oak in Hédervár. The significant finding of the study is that the mean of non-young people’s visitation is higher than that of young people in all three national parks.
This paper explores the integration of Large Language Models (LLMs) and Software-Defined Resources (SDR) as innovative tools for enhancing cloud computing education in university curricula. The study emphasizes the importance of practical knowledge in cloud technologies such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS), DevOps, and cloud-native environments. It introduces Lean principles to optimize the teaching framework, promoting efficiency and effectiveness in learning. By examining a comprehensive educational reform project, the research demonstrates that incorporating SDR and LLMs can significantly enhance student engagement and learning outcomes, while also providing essential hands-on skills required in today’s dynamic cloud computing landscape. A key innovation of this study is the development and application of the Entropy-Based Diversity Efficiency Analysis (EDEA) framework, a novel method to measure and optimize the diversity and efficiency of educational content. The EDEA analysis yielded surprising results, showing that applying SDR (i.e., using cloud technologies) and LLMs can each improve a course’s Diversity Efficiency Index (DEI) by approximately one-fifth. The integrated approach presented in this paper provides a structured tool for continuous improvement in education and demonstrates the potential for modernizing educational strategies to better align with the evolving needs of the cloud computing industry.
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