Archive for year: 2026

In the Philippines, the rising prevalence of youth mental health concerns has highlighted a critical gap: current training for Registered Guidance Counselors (RGCs) often fails to address the complex socio-cultural realities of high-caseload, under-resourced schools. While existing local literature documents mandated roles and systemic challenges, there is a dearth of research explicitly exploring how the unique Filipino context shapes actual counseling practice. Utilizing Giorgi’s descriptive-phenomenological approach, this study investigates the professional lived experiences of Filipino RGCs. The analysis yielded three core themes: the dynamic evolution of the RGC role, the profound influence of Filipino values (specifically malasakit) on practice, and a persistent professional gap. These findings culminate in the proposed Filipino Counselor Empowerment (FCE) Framework, a contextualized model for understanding and supporting the unique professional reality of RGCs in the Philippines.

Investment in energy transition projects is an effective way to promote sustainable economic growth. Although the sector has strong potential and receives policy support in many countries, projects in developing economies have not yet attracted sufficient investment. This study examines the determinants of policy effectiveness in attracting investment for energy transition projects in Vietnam. The study uses a survey of 296 stakeholders involved in renewable energy projects and applies exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and structural equation modeling to process and analyze the data. The results show that infrastructure and administrative and governance capacity have positive and statistically significant effects on investment attraction. The findings contribute to the theoretical basis of factors that influence the effectiveness of policies to attract investment for the energy transition and provide practical implications to mobilize private capital in the near future.

Nnewi, located in Anambra State, Nigeria, has emerged as one of the most prominent indigenous industrial clusters in sub-Saharan Africa. Often described as the Japan of Africa, the town has transitioned from a trading settlement into a manufacturing powerhouse, particularly in automobile and motorcycle components. Despite this remarkable transformation, scholarly attention has largely focused on Nnewi’s entrepreneurial success stories rather than on a systematic analysis of its industrial potential, enabling conditions, and sustainability pathways. This paper addresses this gap by examining Nnewi’s capacity to function as a sustainable industrial hub in the Southeast of Nigeria. Drawing on Schumpeter’s theory of creative destruction, Porter’s cluster theory, and the Sustainable Development Goals framework, the study adopts a qualitative methodology based on archival research, policy analysis, and secondary economic data. The paper argues that while Nnewi possesses substantial industrial potential rooted in indigenous entrepreneurship, realizing and sustaining this potential requires deliberate investments in infrastructure, finance, human capital, security, governance, and environmental management. The study contributes to debates on endogenous industrialization in Africa and provides for regional development planning.

This literature review examines the historical evolution, contemporary structures, and future directions of Chinese education in Malaysia within the broader Southeast Asian context. Historically, Malaysian Chinese education developed under colonial governance and transnational networks connecting Southeast Asian diaspora communities with China, creating a unique educational trajectory distinct from neighboring countries such as Singapore, Indonesia, and Thailand. Following independence, nation-building policies, including the Razak Report (1956) and subsequent education ordinances, enabled Chinese primary schools to integrate into the national education system, while Chinese secondary education largely persisted as privately funded independent schools supported by community contributions. In the contemporary period, Chinese education faces multiple challenges, including teacher shortages, funding inequities, curriculum adaptation to multilingual classrooms, and the integration of digital technologies. Significant research gaps remain in teacher-centered studies, technological innovation, and strategies to balance cultural preservation with intercultural cohesion. Future directions highlight the need for evidence-based policymaking, formal recognition of the Unified Examination Certificate (UEC), and human-centered approaches to ensure institutional sustainability, educational quality, and social inclusivity across Malaysia’s pluralistic society.

This study examines the effect of intellectual capital and corporate governance on the firm value of listed non-financial companies in Nigeria over the period 2014–2023. Anchored on the Knowledge-Based View and Agency Theory, the study employs panel data from 56 firms listed on the Nigerian Exchange Group and applies fixed effects regression techniques to control for unobservable firm-specific heterogeneity. Intellectual capital is measured using the Value Added Intellectual Coefficient (VAIC) framework, decomposed into human capital efficiency, structural capital efficiency, and relational capital efficiency, while firm value is proxied by Tobin’s Q. Corporate governance mechanisms include board size, board independence, board meetings, board financial expertise, gender diversity, and ownership concentration. The results reveal that intellectual capital, particularly human capital efficiency, exerts a positive and statistically significant effect on firm value, underscoring the strategic importance of knowledge-based resources in emerging economies. Relational capital exhibits a weak positive effect, while structural capital is insignificant. Among governance mechanisms, board gender diversity is the only attribute with a positive and significant influence on firm value. The findings suggest that intellectual capital and inclusive governance structures play complementary roles in enhancing firm valuation. The study contributes to the limited Nigerian literature by providing long-term empirical evidence on the joint impact of intellectual capital and corporate governance on firm value and offers policy-relevant insights for regulators, managers, and investors.