The efficiency of private and public schools in urban and rural areas: moving beyond the development goals

Abstract

Data from the Young Lives study are used to evaluate the efficiency of education systems in four low and middle income countries: Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam. A meta‐frontier variant of data envelopment analysis is used to assess the relative performance of each country's system, and, within each country, to evaluate the impact of public and private schooling, and of urban and rural location. Comparisons are drawn between the four countries; the results indicate that in no country does the educational system perform uniformly badly or well. Conditioning on the inputs available, rural areas are often indicative of higher levels of efficiency, thus suggesting a number of implications for policy.

Policy evaluation and efficiency: a systematic literature review

“…Three main geographical areas of investigation are reported: Europe (Glass et al, 2006;Cherchye et al, 2007a;Waldo, 2007;Haelermans and De Witte, 2012;Tochkov et al, 2012;De Witte et al, 2013a, 2013bSchubert and Yang, 2016;Santín & Sicilia, 2018;Papadimitriou and Johnes, 2019;D'Inverno et al, 2021), China and Taiwan (Chang et al, 2009;Kantabutra and Tang, 2010;Zhang et al, 2011;Montoneri et al, 2012;Yang et al, 2018), and the United States (Coupet and Barnum, 2010;Sav, 2012). Three studies fall out of these geographical clusters: Carrington et al (2018), Soares de Mello et al (2006), and Johnes and Virmani (2020), who focus, respectively, on Australia, Brazil, and on the comparison of a set of developing countries (Peru, India, Ethiopia, Vietnam).…”

“…Within the education applications, the policy evaluated includes funding policies (Chang et al., 2009; Tochkov et al., 2012; Schubert and Yang, 2016; Carrington et al., 2018; D'Inverno et al., 2021), policy to improve teaching quality (Montoneri et al., 2012; Santín & Sicilia, 2018; Yang et al., 2018) or research quality (Chang et al., 2009; Zhang et al., 2011), or both (De Witte et al., 2013a, 2013b). Also studies investigating the impact of merger (Glass et al., 2006; Papadimitriou and Johnes, 2019) or the difference between public or private institutions (Cherchye et al., 2007a; Waldo, 2007; Kantabutra and Tang, 2010; Sav, 2012; Johnes and Virmani, 2020) are reported. Three main geographical areas of investigation are reported: Europe (Glass et al., 2006; Cherchye et al., 2007a; Waldo, 2007; Haelermans and De Witte, 2012; Tochkov et al., 2012; De Witte et al., 2013a, 2013b; Schubert and Yang, 2016; Cordero et al., 2018; Santín & Sicilia, 2018; Papadimitriou and Johnes, 2019; D'Inverno et al., 2021), China and Taiwan (Chang et al., 2009; Kantabutra and Tang, 2010; Zhang et al., 2011; Montoneri et al., 2012; Yang et al., 2018), and the United States (Coupet and Barnum, 2010; Sav, 2012).…”

“…Within the education field, the majority of applications focuses on higher education (Glass et al., 2006; Soares de Mello et al., 2006; Waldo, 2007; Chang et al., 2009; Coupet and Barnum, 2010; Kantabutra and Tang, 2010; Zhang et al., 2011; Montoneri et al., 2012; Sav, 2012; Tochkov et al., 2012; De Witte et al., 2013a, 2013b; Schubert and Yang, 2016; Carrington et al., 2018; Yang et al., 2018; Papadimitriou and Johnes, 2019), followed by secondary education (Haelermans and De Witte, 2012; Cordero et al., 2018; D'Inverno et al., 2021) and primary education (Cherchye et al., 2007a; Santín & Sicilia, 2018). Only Johnes and Virmani (2020) follow the students across different levels (excluding higher education). Within the education applications, the policy evaluated includes funding policies (Chang et al., 2009; Tochkov et al., 2012; Schubert and Yang, 2016; Carrington et al., 2018; D'Inverno et al., 2021), policy to improve teaching quality (Montoneri et al., 2012; Santín & Sicilia, 2018; Yang et al., 2018) or research quality (Chang et al., 2009; Zhang et al., 2011), or both (De Witte et al., 2013a, 2013b).…”

“…(2018), Soares de Mello et al. (2006), and Johnes and Virmani (2020), who focus, respectively, on Australia, Brazil, and on the comparison of a set of developing countries (Peru, India, Ethiopia, Vietnam).…”

An assessment of the efficiency of Spanish schools: evaluating the influence of the geographical, managerial, and socioeconomic features

“…(), consider international data for the assessment of a comparison across countries. More recently, Johnes and Virmani () study the impact of public and private schooling separating the effect of rural and urban location. Examples of studies for a particular country include Bessent and Bessent (), Bessent et al.…”