The aim of this paper is to examine the state of higher education in Colombia and estimate the efficiency of different academic programs from institutions of higher education in the country. To estimate efficiency measures, we use stochastic frontier techniques and the results of the Saber Pro test. Estimations evaluate the effect of variables associated with the teaching staff and infrastructure of institutions, and environmental factors that are not directly under the control institutions, such as the family income and parental education. Results highlight the importance of environmental factors, suggesting that while many institutions have margin to improve their efficiency, many of them are restricted by the influence of students’ socioeconomic factors.

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This paper assesses the efficiency of crop and livestock production in Colombia by using a sample of 1,565 households. The study considers households located in different production systems which differ in geography, climate and soil types. These conditions affect technical efficiency and thus render analysis under the same production frontier as inadequate. For this reason, stochastic metafrontier techniques are preferred, allowing the estimation of technical efficiency within each production system and between production systems in relation to the sector as a whole. Results suggest that households in some production systems could be benefiting from better production conditions due to advantages in the availability of natural resources and climate as well as to more favorable socioeconomic conditions. Additionally, we found that, in all systems, households with higher production have higher measures of technical efficiency. Thus, significant gains could be achieved in the sector through measures that contribute to improve the efficiency of households within their production systems and by policies that help reduce the technology gap in relation to the meta-frontier. These policies would bring positive impacts on the quality of life of small farmers and on the productivity of the sector.

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En este documento se describe el comportamiento reciente de algunos indicadores del sistema educativo colombiano tomando en consideración el efecto de la pandemia. Además, se evalúa empíricamente el impacto de un plan piloto de alternancia, ejecutado entre septiembre y diciembre de 2020, sobre los resultados de la prueba Saber 11 que se realizó en noviembre del mismo año. Los indicadores sobre educación básica y media revelan que la pandemia causó una mayor demanda por servicios de educación en colegios oficiales, aumentó las tasas de deserción y repitencia escolar y profundizó las brechas en el rendimiento académico. En educación superior se mantiene la tendencia descendente en el número de estudiantes matriculados, así como las brechas en el rendimiento académico, al considerar diferentes factores socioeconómicos de los estudiantes. Las estimaciones del ejercicio empírico, que evalúa la efectividad del plan de alternancia, indican que los estudiantes que participaron en el experimento obtuvieron en promedio mejores resultados en la prueba Saber 11 con respecto a los estudiantes que permanecieron en el esquema no presencial.