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The performance of education systems in the light of Europe 2020 strategy

  • S.I.: Data Envelopment Analysis: Four Decades On
  • Published:
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Abstract

The performance evaluation of education systems is at the top of the agenda of governments and education authorities worldwide. However, research involving cross-country comparisons of the performance of education systems is still incipient. This paper proposes a new composite indicator to summarise the performance of education systems, enabling benchmarking comparisons and the definition of objectives for improvement. The research analyses different modelling alternatives for the construction of composite indicators, with varying degrees of weight flexibility. Our study uses annual data of 29 European countries, collected from Eurostat and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development databases. The results obtained in terms of performance scores and country rankings are presented and their managerial implications are discussed. We conclude that composite indicators estimated using frontier techniques can support the transition from the paradigm of performance assessment (control) to performance management (improvement).

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Notes

  1. http://ec.europa.eu/education/policy/strategic-framework_en.

  2. http://ec.europa.eu/europe2020/europe-2020-in-a-nutshell/targets/index_en.htm.

  3. http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/education-and-training/data/database.

  4. http://www.oecd.org/pisa/data/2015database/.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Vilnius University Institute of Data Science and Digital Technologies, Akademijos str. 4, 08663, Vilnius, Lithuania

    Dovile Stumbriene & Audrone Jakaitiene

  2. Faculdade de Engenharia, Universidade do Porto, R. Dr. Roberto Frias, 4200-465, Porto, Portugal

    Ana S. Camanho

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  1. Dovile Stumbriene
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Stumbriene, D., Camanho, A.S. & Jakaitiene, A. The performance of education systems in the light of Europe 2020 strategy. Ann Oper Res 288, 577–608 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-019-03329-5

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