TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY AND TOTAL FACTOR PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH OF PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN ZIMBABWE: THE CASE OF HARARE PROVINCE
Date
2017-05-22
Authors
ZVENDIYA, RONALD
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Zimbabwe
Abstract
In light of the efforts by government to lift the Zimbabwean system of primary education, the
study assesses technical efficiency of primary schools using Data Envelopment Analysis.
Precisely, the study examines the technical efficiency of 27 primary schools based on
obtainable inputs data on number of classrooms, teaching staff, enrollment, average class size
and number of toilets and output data on performance in primary leaving examinations. The
efficiency scores are then regressed against input variables and locational dummy to determine
their effect on efficiency. Furthermore, the study also examines total factor productivity change
in these primary schools based on the Malmquist Index using panel data for 5 years from 2011
to 2015. The results from the Data Envelopment Analysis suggest that a great number of the
primary schools are not efficient because they have efficiency scores less than 1. Additionally,
results from the efficiency scores suggest that primary schools could improve performance by
14.3% using the same resources. Moreover, mean annual total factor productivity growth
decreased by 2.9%. Analysis of Tobit regression shows a negative significant relationship
between average class size and efficiency thus congested classes are associated with
inefficiency. Primary schools situated in low density areas are found to perform better than
their high density counterparts. The study recommends that government policy should be
geared towards reducing the average class size. The increasing levels of enrollment should be
dealt with by increasing the number of classes and the number of teachers. The assessment
system in primary schools should be restructured to ensure improvement in the low pass rates
by implementing a competency based assessment framework which is more valid to skills
improvement.