Research article

Assessing the Efficiency of Public Schools in the Qassim School District

Ali S.  Al-Shayea Ph.D.

Department of Educational Management and Planning, College of Education- Qassim University, Saudi Arabia

Author E-mail: ashayea@qu.edu.sa

Accepted 08 May, 2014

Abstract

The technical efficiency of seventeen (17) schools in the Qassim district of Saudi Arabia is measured using data envelopment analysis with output oriented variable returns to scale for the year 2011. The analysis was conducted using the number of students who passed the school district’s standardized tests as the output, and the number of students per school, the annual expenditure per student, and the number of teachers per school as inputs. Results showed that only six schools were fully efficient, leaving 64.7% of schools categorized as inefficient. The average efficiency was 0.96. The scale efficiency showed that 58.8% of schools were optimal size.

Keywords: Technical efficiency, public schools, data envelopment analysis