A robust data envelopment analysis for evaluating technical efficiency of indonesian high schools

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to evaluate the technical efficiency of high school education in Indonesia by applying Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), which is the most frequently used to measure the efficiency scores. However, this study uses a robust approach to face the complex problem of the traditional DEA, which may lead to biased results. Besides, it is a powerful approach to estimate technical efficiency when outliers contaminate the data set. Statistical data from general senior secondary schools in the period 2015/2016 is analyzed, using 34 provinces as decision-making units (DMUs), with eight input and six output variables. The results indicate that the average efficiency score of Indonesia’s major political subdivisions in managing high school education is 0.936. Furthermore, as many as 32.35 percents of provinces achieve efficient performances, with an efficiency score equal to one, while 17 provinces have above average efficiency scores. The results also indicate that efficiency scores from robust data envelopment analysis provide better accuracy. Overall, application of robust data envelopment analysis (RDEA) is appropriate for measuring the efficiency of provincial performance in organizing secondary education.