An Efficiency Analysis of the Philippine Basic Education Sector

Jason  P. Alinsunurin,

An Efficiency Analysis of the Philippine Basic Education Sector

Abstract:

This paper presents a comparative examination of the relative efficiency levels of the basic education sector of the Philippines, using parametric and non-parametric tools of analysis. The study sought to identify the basic school inputs relevant to improvements in test scores, considered to be the output in the empirical model developed.

Data from the DepEd, NETRC and NSCB were used. Using school divisions as the basic decision making unit (DMU), a parametric method of presenting units as firms facing technical inefficiencies in production with a stochastic component called Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) was used to identify education and environmental inputs key to output improvement. Maximum-likelihood estimates confirm that teachers, rooms and seating ratios significantly improve outputs at the elementary level, while fewer significant variables registered at the secondary level. Technical efficiency scores (89.4%-elementary, 90.4%-secondary) show that both levels are facing technical inefficiencies in translating outputs into outcomes, with variations across divisions. A non parametric efficiency tool, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), was used to compute for the relative output and input efficiency scores for both public elementary and secondary school divisions. Results show that school divisions have output and input efficiency scores of 0.79 and 0.71 at the elementary level, and 0.69 and 0.68 at the secondary level. This implies that test scores can still be further improved by 21% at the elementary level and 31% at the secondary level, keeping inputs constant. The input efficiency scores imply that inputs can still be reduced by 29% at the elementary level and 32% at the secondary level and still maintain the same level of output of test scores. The study adds further empirical support to the need of greater reform in input-relevant policies of the public basic education sector in the country.