Educational efficiency in a dea-bootstrap approach

We use the PISA 2006 results to analyse the students' proficiencies in 24 European Countries with regard to two indexes that represent the educational resources available at home and the family background of students. Many factors affect the proficiencies and therefore, using a DEA-bootstrap method, we intend to measure the efficiency of the European educational systems as capability to ensure high students' competencies despite adverse conditions about the educational resources available in students' home and the family background.PISA, educational achievement, efficiency analysis.

The Relative Efficiency of Educational Systems: A Cross Country Prescriptive Analysis

How does a country achieve the most efficient education system possible? We examine the efficiency of educational systems across the world using internationally comparable performance of secondary school pupils. We use OECD aggregate panel data on 39 countries across 17 years to model the most efficient combination of teacher salaries, class size and capital resources to secure the maximum level of students’ achievement. In the face of constrained education budgets prescriptive policy evaluations are provided to suggest how countries could make a significant improvement to their educational outcomes by adjusting their educational resource inputs. We also ask if there is a trade-off between the efficiency and equity of educational provision.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Measuring educational efficiency at student level with parametric stochastic distance functions: An application to Spanish PISA results

This study explicitly considers that education is a multi-input multi-output production process subject to inefficient behaviors that can be identified at student level. Therefore a distance function allows us to calculate different aspects of educational technology. The paper presents an empirical application of this model using Spanish data from the Programme for International Student Assessment implemented by the OECD. The results provide insights into how student background, peer-group and school characteristics interact with educational outputs. Findings also suggest that, once educational inputs are taken into account; there is no statistically significant difference in efficiency levels across schools regarding public-private ownership.Secondary schools, technical efficiency, stochastic frontier, distance function.

Unequal opportunities and human capital formation

This paper develops a tractable, heterogeneous agents general equilibrium model where agents face different costs of access to the educational system. The paper explores the relation between inequality of opportunities (in the form of differential costs of access to the educational process) and efficiency (the levels of human capital and output). More precisely, the results from the simulation of the model suggest that a higher level of inequality of opportunities is associated with a lower level of average human capital, lower output per worker and higher income (wage) inequality. In other words, the model (based on standard assumptions) does not predict a trade-off between efficiency and equal opportunity in human capital formationHuman Capital, Inequality, Equity-Efficiency Tradeoff

Collaborative Educational Systems

This paper starts describing the key concepts of collaborative systems and the impact of this to educational systems. There are presented the main properties and quality characteristics for the collaborative educational systems. For the main quality characteristic, like portability and complexity are presented different types of indicators for an educational system. The article analyzes different ways to increase the efficiency and the performance level in collaborative educational systems.

A Discussion of Thin Client Technology for Computer Labs

Computer literacy is not negotiable for any professional in an increasingly computerised environment. Educational institutions should be equipped to provide this new basic training for modern life. Accordingly, computer labs are an essential medium for education in almost any field. Computer labs are one of the most popular IT infrastructures for technical training in primary and secondary schools, universities and other educational institutions all over the world. Unfortunately, a computer lab is expensive, in terms of both initial purchase and annual maintenance costs, and especially when we want to run the latest software. Hence, research efforts addressing computer lab efficiency, performance or cost reduction would have a worldwide repercussion. In response to this concern, this paper presents a survey on thin client technology for computer labs in educational environments. Besides setting out the advantages and drawbacks of this technology, we aim to refute false prejudices against thin clients, identifying a set of educational scenarios where thin clients are a better choice and others requiring traditional solutions

Big data for monitoring educational systems

This report considers “how advances in big data are likely to transform the context and methodology of monitoring educational systems within a long-term perspective (10-30 years) and impact the evidence based policy development in the sector”, big data are “large amounts of different types of data produced with high velocity from a high number of various types of sources.” Five independent experts were commissioned by Ecorys, responding to themes of: students' privacy, educational equity and efficiency, student tracking, assessment and skills. The experts were asked to consider the “macro perspective on governance on educational systems at all levels from primary, secondary education and tertiary – the latter covering all aspects of tertiary from further, to higher, and to VET”, prioritising primary and secondary levels of education

Analysis of Economic Motives in the Individual Choice of Educational Paths

The authors consider the economic motivations when individuals choose an educational path. This line of research is relevant from both, the point of view of science — research of economic behavior of an individual, and the point of view of practice — allows to increase efficiency of investments in a human capital. The authors have developed the economic and mathematical model of choice of optimum educational paths by individuals. The model is realized in the software and approved on real data on more than 5,5 thousand students. For the analysis of the importance of rational economic expectations when an educational path has to be chosen, the paths chosen by students is compared and the educational paths optimum from the point of view of economic rationality are calculated. The analysis of the results has showed that mainly, the choice of educational paths happens according to the economic motivations. On the considered selection, 66 % of prospective students have chosen an optimum path from the point of view of economic preferences. The most significant factor providing development of optimum educational paths is an expectation of higher income upon completion of education — 22 % of all educational paths, and a possibility of cost-cutting of educating or state-subsidized education — 12 %. In our opinion, one of the most important practical results of the research of optimum educational path is the need to consider expectations of students and prospective student when developing a state policy of investment in human capital

The Effect of Increasing Aboriginal Educational Attainment on the Labour Force, Output and the Fiscal Balance

Investing in disadvantaged young people is one of the rare public policies with no equity-efficiency tradeoff. Based on the methodology developed in Sharpe, Arsenault and Lapointe (2007), we estimate the effect of increasing the educational attainment level of Aboriginal Canadians on labour market outcome and output up to 2026. We build on these projection to estimate the potential effect of eliminating educational and social gaps between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people on government spending and government revenues using population and economic projections to 2026.Aboriginal, Education, Canada, Forecast of economic growth, Equity and efficiency.