Mainstreaming LSENs in a Regular Classroom: A Scoping Review

This study aims to generate thorough and comprehensive review of the teacher’s perspective and hands-on experience in mainstreaming LSENs in a regular classroom, including teachers’ attitudes and perceptions, challenges encountered, and teaching approach in handling mainstreamed classrooms. A scoping review framework by Arksey and O’Malley’s (2005) systematically analyzed the data of the different articles conducted by various scholars. Through scrupulous and through selection of related studies, 10 articles were included in the review from 6 different countries across the globe. The articles included were conducted from 6 countries and various databases. The study highlighted that: 1) teachers have positive and negative attitudes towards mainstreaming, 2) teachers experienced various challenges in handling a mainstream classroom, and 3) learner-centered approach to learning is used in the classroom. Mainstreaming LSENs in a regular classroom has pros and cons among teachers, regular students, and the LSENs themselves. Hence, a daunting responsibility for the teachers. Nevertheless, it is imperative to support teachers by giving seminars and training, especially to those non-special education majors, to be fully equipped to handle mainstreamed classrooms.

Stress testing banks using the new Keynesian DSGE framework

The frequent occurrence of financial crises and specifically the 2007-08 subprime global financial crisis brought a series of major macroprudential reforms in the regulation of financial institutions and markets. Among such reforms is to periodically gauge the resilience of institutions through stress testing and to mitigate system-wide risks. Stress testing is a risk management process in which various historical and hypothetical shocks are applied to test the resilience in worst-case scenarios. Over a period, there have been major advances in global financial markets and increased complexity in financial instruments and risk identification. As a result, stress testing methodologies have also improved from basic sensitivity analysis to sophisticated partial equilibrium models. The study employs the Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) model calibrated for Pakistan using the quarterly data for 02:2002 - 02: 2018. The DSGE model constructed three shock scenarios of technology, demand preference, and monetary policy and produced stressed forecasts. These forecasts were later used in the VAR model to come up with the future path of credit risk indicator (GNPLR) of the banks. Similarly, the forecasts based on VAR was also computed. It was found that the DSGE based stressed forecast of GNPLR tends to be slightly higher in the initial quarter and as time horizon increases, the deviation between forecasts tends to grow. It is expected that as DSGE models grow in coverage and include financial sector and risk transmission channels, there will be greater acceptability of these sophisticated measures in stress testing the banking sector